Yeah, I know, that was painful for me to write as well. The last thing anyone wants is more members of the U.S. Congress embarrassing themselves and their constituents.
However, with the just-released 2010 Census results and the resulting flurry of spin over the political implications (Texas gains 4 districts, New York and Ohio lose 2 each, etc), there's another key number:
710,767.
That's the new average size that each district is supposed to be, and it's an absurd number for a "Representative" legislative body, regardless of your ideology.
The only thing that the Constitution says about the number of members of the House of Representatives is that there can be a minimum of 1 per 30,000 citizens, and that each state has to get at least one. However, it says nothing about a maximum:
The only constitutional rule relating to the size of the House says: "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand."[3] Congress regularly increased the size of the House to account for population growth until it fixed the number of voting House members at 435 in 1911.[1] The number was temporarily increased to 437 in 1959 upon the admission of Alaska and Hawaii (seating one representative from each of those states without changing existing apportionment), and returned to 435 four years later, after the reapportionment consequent to the 1960 census.
There doesn't seem to be any particular reason for the 435 number. They just kept adding seats until they hit that number, then stopped. I dunno...maybe they just ran out of office space at the Capital or something, and didn't feel like putting an addition on the building, which is a pretty stupid basis for running a government.
Now, I'm not suggesting that they bump it up to the 1:30,000 limit; that would result in a whopping 10,000 House districts! Can you imagine the onslaught of campaign junk mail and TV ads?
On the other hand, 1:710,000 is pretty non-representative as well.
Plus, there's the fact that the smallest state (currently Wyoming) has only 560,000 people living in it. At the very least, the ratio should be based on the population of the smallest state getting 1 Rep (that would mean 550 Representatives total).
As an aside, the District of Columbia has 601,000 people living in it--more than Wyoming--but doesn't get even a single voting Representative, which is just plain wrong.
Personally, I think they should lop the number down to an even half-million, which would give 604 members, but that's just me.
There's actually an interesting lawsuit pending right now about this very issue:
The lawsuit Clemons v. Department of Commerce has been filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. The suit seeks a court order for Congress to reapportion the House of Representatives with a greater number of members following the 2010 Census, in order to rectify under- and over-representation of some states with the 435 rule. If this occurs, this would also affect Electoral College apportionment for the 2012 and subsequent presidential elections.[5] The court has granted oral arguments, which occurred on May 28, 2010.[6]
Thoughts?