On January 30, Congressmember Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced HB 622, to increase the size of the U.S. House from 435 to 585 members, effective in 2031.
On January 30, Congressmember Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced HB 622, to increase the size of the U.S. House from 435 to 585 members, effective in 2031.
Yes!
More government waste. Typical Democrat commie.
1. The size of population has increased to the point where the districts are too large, however…
2. The way Congress operates now, there are maybe 20 to 25 people that matter because power in the House has been centralized. If they increase the size of the House from 435 to 585, due to that power centralization there are still going to be only 20 to 25 that matter, so all you’re doing is increasing the number of weak backbenchers.
What method did he use to arrive at the 585 member number? Using the 2020 census, the Wyoming Rule would result in 573 members, whereas the Cube Root Rule would result in 693 members.
@ Ryan:
Is there a way to decentralize power in the House, or should we just accept centralization as a given?
MIDWEST/SOUTH QUITE READY TO SECEDE TO END RULE BY DONKEY COMMIES SINCE 1929-1930.
1777 ART CONFED — IGNORED AND THEN DEAD IN 1787-1789.
TOO MANY FATAL DEFECTS IN 1787 USA CONST TO COUNT —-
3 ANTI-DEMOCRACY MINORITY RULE ELECTION SYSTEMS
SCOTUS PERVERSIONS OF 1-8-1 AND 1-8-3 TO KILL OFF STATES
INSANE PEACETIME DEFICITS AND DEBTS
INTERNAL SOP VIOLATIONS – ESP PREZ FORN EXEC AGREEMENTS [LEGIS].
Walter,
It’s a given until you have either a third party in the House that ensures neither the Republicans or Democrats have a majority, and either change gets negotiated or discharge petition-a-thon occurs. You could also have a bunch of Republican and/or Democratic reformers effectively do what was just done to McCarthy and be assholes withholding their votes. People in power never voluntarily give up their power.
The major difference from the current House to the ones of the days of yore is committee chairs as far as being independent power brokers have been largely neutered and the Speaker in addition to controlling what the House business is has made it so he or she also controls committee business. There’s also as Justin Amash and others have pointed out we’ve gone 3 full terms and counting without a single amendment raised on the House floor with every amendment that has come being pre-vetted by the Speaker and gaining either Paul Ryan’s or Nancy Pelosi’s approval before it even gets debated.
H REPS BECAME MOB SCENE IN 1873 WITH INCREASE IN REPS DUE TO 13 AND 14-2 AMDTS –
EX-REBEL SLAVE STATES GAINED A HIGHER PCT OF TOTAL REPS.
SIZE INCREASE SO THAT NO NORTH/WEST STATE LOST ANY REP. SEAT.
INCREASE IN REPS CAUSES MORE TOP MONARCH/OLIGARCH MACHINATIONS.
They should be seated alphabetically.
Increasing the size of the House I think is at a small level just going to occur simply because Puerto Rico will probably in the next 20 years become a state. If D.C. ever becomes one as well, that’s 4 to 5 Representatives that would get subtracted from the pre-existing 50 states. It’d be less harmful for incumbent politicians when the census comes around to increase the size of the House to say 440.
We need 2,000, all from where I am currently in hiding.
@ Ryan:
Well, then, it seems to me that increasing the size of the House at least increases the possibility that independents will get elected. So, if neither major party has a majority, then decentralization can be compelled by the independents.
From a third party standpoint, decreasing district size increases the possibility of them being elected. There’s less voters to win so any concentrated pockets get amplified. If you took for example U.S. district sizes and implemented them in Canada, the NDP as a going concern would have way less potential to ever be much of anything.
As far as independents, as you see in the Senate you have independents that still choose to coalition with one of the two main parties. The Senate has had more elected Republican Senators than elected Democratic Senators this term and the last one, but Schumer is still Majority Leader. You would need to have independents that would want to be independents versus ones that are by fact part of one party because they want committee assignments.
@Ryan,
Increasing the size of the House will not result in more independent and third parties being elected as long as partisans control redistricting. I know that many states would simply gerrymander the new districts into their own party’s control.
Ryan said:
“You would need to have independents that would want to be independents versus ones that are by fact part of one party because they want committee assignments.”
I agree.
With the technology that exists today there is little reason for the House of Representatives to meet in person. Follow the Constitution (Article One, Section Two) and have it truly become the “People’s House” again. With the large number of Representatives that would result the House would have to meet virtually and would be almost impossible for special interests to control.
@ Casual Observer:
I’m not sure that a large body meeting virtually cannot be controlled by a small, focused core that would be managing their agenda and procedure
Committee assignments are voted on by all members of the chamber at large. Members caucusing with specific parties is not because of committee assignments. Amash set this straight on twitter a month or two ago. I was originally under the impression they were appointments by the party leadership but they’re not.
Found it: https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1612639345478860806?cxt=HHwWjICwoZm8n-EsAAAA
ALL LEGISLATIVE BODIES —
PR — TOTAL VOTES / TOTAL MEMBERS = EQUAL VOTES TO ELECT
VIA PRE-ELECTION CANDIDATE RANKED LISTS- RCV VARIANT.
—
PENDING CONDORCET AND EXACT UNEQUAL VOTING POWERS = FINAL VOTES RECEIVED.
STATES WILL THUS SURVIVE THE NONSTOP EFFORTS BY COMMIE/FASCIST MONARCH/OLIGARCH MONSTERS TO WIPE THEM OUT.
ALDEN – SUPER-ELITE PARTY HACKS IN HOUSE RULES COMT 99 PCT CONTROLS BILLS / AGENDA / ETC.
—-
IE NOW — ABOUT 5 OR LESS STATIST MONSTERS CONTROL ALL LAWS IN THE USA AND IN THE 50 STATE REGIMES —
ROUGHLY 250 SUPER STATISTS —
MAJOR REGIMES — USA, CA, TX, NY, ETC — UNDER 100.
It’s sad how many people believe growing the government is a good thing. This is all this is: more waste. Think of all the perks these people get, it’s more than just a salary. We are bankrupt as it is.
The House should be about 6,000 members and all ballot access censorship should be abolished. Furthermore, voters should be able to enroll by ranked choice up to the equal population limit om a first come first enrolled basis in any House district in their state six months before each biennial election.
Or just continue to go with the flow of a fascist police state ruled by the duopoly elite.
If anyone thinks that expanding the size of Congress might be too costly, then I recommend my constitutional amendment that would give states the power to determine the pay of their members of Congress. At the very least, it would make them more accountable to their constituents.
Looking at the behavior of politicians, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would think that having more of them is a good idea. Their personal and staff pay is a problem, but a relatively minor one compared with the other problems they create for taxpayers. To understand the bigger problems you should begin by considering what a politician’s job mostly consists of:
1. To win another term.
2. To fundraise to campaign for another term.
3. To build larger name recognition and following in service of the first two goals as well as to enhance their opportunities to run for higher office and their future income from book deals, personal appearance fees, media gigs, lobbying and corporate board positions, etc.
4. To bring home wasteful federal funding for various projects in their districts which they can brag about when they run again and which most of their fellow politicians vote for in order to win similar support for other such projects in their own districts.
5. To respond to pressure from constituents and lobbyists. The bulk of this pressure tends to be for more costly and more intrusive government for a variety of reasons. These include the overwhelming leftist bias of academic, allegedly charitable, and infotainment institutions; lobbying by government employees and their unions; and the greater incentives for the recipients or beneficiaries of any particular government expenditure to lobby for its continuation and expansion vis a vis those of taxpayers to lobby for its curtailment or elimination.
These job requirements and incentives greatly outweigh any naive civic minded intentions that might initially motivate some politicians to seek the job, but to the extent that such naive beliefs may persist among some politicians they can be even more dangerous and deleterious to common citizens and taxpayers because of aforementioned media and educational bias as well as the idea that government intervention is more likely than not to fix social and economic problems, past and present real world evidence notwithstanding. That is, an honest and idealistic socialist can often be an even worse and more dangerous politician or bureaucrat than a thoroughly corrupt pathologically lying and chronically stealing crook.
Given that these are the real world duties of the job, how in the world would having more of them help fix it?
Additionally, if states were to set the pay of their representatives, would it cure these problems? I don’t believe it would, since this pay would most likely be determined by state legislatures, many of whom aspire to run for Congress in the future or at least see it as a potential career path, and signed or vetoed by governors, who may well be thinking of running for senator next. This doesn’t seem like a great formula for reining in congressional pay, does it?
If the additional members of Congress represent greater political and ideological diversity, then that would be an improvement because it would be harder for Congress to pass sweeping, omnibus legislation.
The best outcome of expanding the House would be if enough independents and third party Reps get elected such that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans ever get a majority.
Many, indeed I would guess most, nations have multiparty systems, with representatives of more than two parties in their parliaments, and most often no single party with a majority. At least some have parliaments with more members than the US Congress does – off the top of my head without looking it up, I think the European Parliament, for example. They don’t seem to have too much trouble in passing oppressive legislation, however. What is your reason for believing that it would work differently in the United States?
Out of curiosity I went ahead and looked it up:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legislatures_by_number_of_members
Please feel free to post evidence to the contrary, but I wouldn’t call the 22 or 23 nations (depending on whether you count the European Union as one) which have more members of parliament per country than tne US has members of Congress models of ideal laissez faire government, would you? While there are exceptions, most of the list consists of multiparty parliaments, many or most of which don’t have a single party majority; that is, most are governed by multiparty coalitions which are frequently unstable. Would emulating these shining examples help solve the problems of the USA? I tend to think no, but if you disagree, why would it?
Vadim:
The culture is different in the US. The best way to stop oppressive government here, whether by the left or right, is to expand the systems of checks and balances Madison understood this in Federalist #10.
Most of the European countries, and even the English speaking countries don’t having the depth of checks and balances that our constitution has created. Separation of powers, full bicameralism, divided sovereignty, and judicial review are more developed here that elsewhere
But, since the Progressive Era, US politicians, of both the left and the right, have been trying to water down and bypass the system of checks and balances. Ballot access and campaign finance rules are all designed to limit choices to the Democrats and Republicans, forcing every voter to make sub-optimal choices such that, either one of the other can obtain a Congressional majority. States are constantly overridden by the federal government. And, most dangerous of all, both parties are constantly expanding the executive power of the President to overcome their lack of control in Congress.
It’s hard to determine without empirical evidence whether any given proposed change would make things worse or better. For example, are multiparty coalitions which add up to legislative majorities inherently better than in effect making those parties mere caucuses of larger parties? Prior to the progressive era, either the Democrats, Republicans or one of their predecessors formed congressional majorities, at least most of the time. Regardless of which the growth of government generally continued.
US exceptionalism may be a tempting reply to questions about whether your proposed policies would really have their stated intended effects, as it limits the number or utility of empirical comparisons. But for example let’s just say you could in fact frustrate the attempts of either of the largest parties to put together congressional majorities on a consistent basis, for example. Is there any reason to believe that wouldn’t lead to an even faster expansion of executive authority as public frustration grows with congressional deadlock? Or, perhaps smaller coalition partners would have outsized influence in their ability to allow a majority to be hobbled together. You may be thinking of libertarians when you presume that would be a good thing but look at how that works out in, for example, Israel. It could be a small ultra-religious or communist party which gets to be the tail wagging the dog. If you don’t think such foreign examples apply in any way to the United States, consider how that already works now for extremist congressional caucuses within the major parties in the USA.
@ Vadim:
You mention Israel, as an example of a multi party system, and point out their problems that minor parties can make. But, Israel is not a good example because their constitution really does not have checks and balances. The truth is, Israel is a kind of parliamentary dictatorship.
A MUCH better example is Switzerland, which I talk about in my response in the following thread.
And, like Switzerland, I would like to thwart the tendency of both major parties to short circuit checks and balances by Presidential decree by abolishing the sole Presidency, and replacing it with a Swiss style joint executive council in which all the major parties take part.
Such questions are a total waste of time. Elections should be about one thing and one thing only: picking the winning party for the year that follows that election. The winning party should then pick all the officeholders, and that includes deciding how many of them there will be. They could choose to save taxpayers money by having one officeholder who would serve as president-legislator, for example.
There would be no need for any judicial branch, since the jobs of judge, jury and executioner would be done by law enforcement officers. The winning party could save taxpayers even more money by not having any officeholders at all, only law enforcement officers. The law enforcement officers would then quite literally be the law. They would be paid by money collected from poll taxes. All other taxes would be eliminated.