“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Mark Twain quoting Disraeli
Any common statistical generator will show that a random sample size of 435 from a population of 311,591,917 will have a 95% confidence of being accurate within a margin of error of about 4.5%. If I’m selling colas or cars, those numbers are acceptable. Calculating the popularity of a national politician? Those statistics look believable to the “common” observer. Wanting to know or understand a truly life changing event? Most worthwhile statisticians would describe a survey’s outcome having 95% accuracy and a margin of error of 4.5% to be less than adequate. How large of a random sample would one need to accurately predict the behavior of a population exceeding 311 million? To have 99% confidence with a margin of error of 3%, the random sample would need to be 1,849; to have 95% confidence the random sample would need to be 1,067. But, change the 435 from a randomly generated sample to a selected sample and, statistically speaking, irrespective of the confidence or the margin of error, the results are useless. Such is the current state of the United States House of Representatives.
Our House of Representatives is, of course, not randomly chosen. And, even if the Founders had deigned to design it so, the population from which the Members were drawn would probably have been limited to white, male, land-owners, over the age of 25, hardly “representative” of our past or current population. (I’ll let others debate the “what-ifs” of this). The Founders didn’t include the House as part of our government to be a statistical representation of the United States; they designed it to avoid the oligarchy that would surely have resulted had the Senate been the only entity included in the legislative branch of government. The idea was that the House would be the “instigating” chamber, channeling the will of the people through the government, and the Senate would be the “rational” chamber, channeling the will of the states. Thus, membership in the House was designed to fluctuate based on population, while the Senate membership was designed to have more stability. Even the length of terms in office seems to underscore the point: two-year terms in the House; six-year terms in the Senate. And, unless you were not a white, male, land-owner, over the age of 25, this system worked well for our nation’s first 150 years: the state governments thrived while the federal government was kept in check from interfering in day to day living. Just like the Founders envisioned. The system wasn’t perfect, far from it. But save an Indian War, or two (or three, or four) and the Civil War, the system worked well. What changed? When did the system stop working? Perhaps when the House membership stopped growing?
Corruption has always been a part of doing business in and with the United States. If one can convince Congress to pass legislation which favors their interests, one can reap millions of benefits. And, since it is taxes and labor that make up most of a business’s expenses, those are the two factors a business wants most control over. If only there was a way to gain that control? Oh, wait, there is. There’s Congress. More specifically, there’s the House, where all legislation concerning taxes and most legislation concerning labor originate. If one can “influence” the House, one can literally change laws, or stop them completely. And, because House membership has been limited to 435, all one needs to do is “influence” 110 people: 110 people who are more concerned with campaign finances than representing the people.
A majority of 435 is 218. Why does it take influencing just 110 people to alter Congress? It is a math thing. One doesn’t need to influence a majority of House members (218 is 51% of 435); one needs to influence the majority of the majority (110 is 51% of 218). So, if a “special interest” wants to “influence” to the tune of $25,000 each, it needs only to spend $2.75 million dollars. Of course, it doesn’t need to give each of those 110 people money. There are other ways to influence a body. $25,000 may not sound like a lot of money to someone worth two or three million dollars (average worth of a typical Representative). But, when your goal is to raise millions to keep your job, $25,000 of someone else’s money can be quite the catch. And, because there are elections, most special interests hedge their bets by donating to both candidates, so a candidate needs to raise even more money to out-spend their opponent.
In reality, hundreds of millions of dollars are spend each year “influencing” our representatives and those who want to be our representatives. And thanks in part to a recent Supreme Court ruling, limiting money in the political arena is no longer an option. We can, however, make Congress too big to buy. We can re-establish the ratio of representative to constituent to a more manageable 1:250,000. That would bring the membership to 1,240. Keep the House rules the same, and a majority of a majority is now 311. What happens if a “special interest” must spend, not $2.5 million to maintain influence, but $7.8 million instead? Or $10 million, should they decide to hedge their bet? Only the biggest of the big can afford that expense year in and year out. Also, that amount of money is more difficult to keep secret, so the likelihood of a representative’s constituents knowing who is “influencing” the representative grows. What happens if each Representative is responsible for representing 250,000 people instead of 750,000, so needs only to get 125,001 votes instead of 375,001, and, as important, gets to know more of the people they’re supposedly representing? The fewer votes needed means the less money spent.
Power in Washington is going to increase whether or not the House membership increases. In order to dissipate the power, one need only increase in number those to whom it is given. Think of the power relationship as a mathematical equation. Let P equal power and m equal membership. Thus, the equation P/m gives us the amount of power given to each member. Even accounting for the fact that in practice each member does not receive an equal amount of power (longevity does have its privilege), the equation gives a good representation. As the amount of power (our nominator) increases, the amount of members (the denominator) must increase to prevent saturation. So, P/435 gives each of the 435 more P than P/1240 gives the 1,240. In addition, the statement “the fewer votes needed means the less money spent” works in the inverse: the more votes needed, the more money spent.
Increasing the number of representatives in the House won’t be a cure-all for what ails our country, but it is a step in the right direction.
In the Part III, I’ll address some of the concerns about increasing the size of Congress expressed to me by people who think I’m off my rocker.