Reforming Congress: A couple of interesting ideas

Peter Beinart has the story:

Democrats across the country should jump on the Schwarzenegger bandwagon, demanding that their states also take redistricting away from the state legislatures that deny voters a real choice over who represents them. In a state like Florida, where the GOP has absurdly gerrymandered to ensure a mass of safe Republican seats, such a change could bring real Democratic gains and perhaps even help put control of the House back in play.

....Openings like this don't come along very often. If Democrats don't seize it, they will have no one to blame but themselves.

When the Framers drafted the Constitution, they fully expected that as the American population grew, so would the House of Representatives. "I take for granted," James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 55, "that the number of representatives will be augmented from time to time in the manner provided by the Constitution." He was writing to rebut charges that the proposed House was too small to be democratic and would turn into an oligarchy. He repeated the point in Federalist Nos. 56 and 58, noting that the purpose of the decennial census was to facilitate the growth of the House.

And growth there was. From 65 seats in 1789, the House grew to 105 after the 1790 Census tallied 3.9 million Americans -- putting the ratio of representatives to citizens at 1 to 37,000. After the 1800 Census, the House was enlarged to 142, then to 186 after the 1810 Census, 213 after the 1820 Census, and so on for more than a century. The increase in House members always lagged behind the increase in population, so the number of citizens per member of Congress steadily rose.

Still, it was 1860 before the ratio went over 1 for every 100,000, and not until 1910, when the House expanded to 435 members, that it surpassed 1 for every 200,000. But in the years since, the number of House seats has remained fixed at 435, while the population has more than tripled. The result is today's swollen congressional districts, each of which now contains more people than most states did when the Constitution was ratified.

Enlarging the House to around 1,300 members -- triple its current size -- would doubtless take some getting used to. But the benefits would more than outweigh any inconvenience.

Among them: Congress would be enriched by a great infusion of new blood and new ideas. Congressional staffs could be sharply reduced. Smaller districts would promote greater political intimacy -- elections would be more likely to turn on personal campaigning and local ties instead of costly mass-media advertising. No longer would states have to lose seats in Congress even though their population had grown, and with fewer votes needed to get elected, the House would be more likely to reflect the nation's social and political diversity.

As the number of people grow, the "people's house" should grow. On this as on so much else, the Framers had it right.