US House Representation

I have a friend I run into frequently while walking the dog. When we meet, we solve the problems of the United States. His speciality is economics. One of the highest priority items that should be addressed is US House Representation. Because of how isolated these folks are, how expensive it is to get into office, the inability for most constituents to be heard by their representative, we need to revisit how it came to be only 435.

Let me cut to the chase. We need to abolish 1929 legislation limiting the House membership to 435. The US Constitution Article I, Section 2, clause 3 states "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative".

The "shall not exceed" is left for interpretation. There was enough concern that the real first amendment was created to address the issue. It did not get ratification.

But, we can still look at the precedent set prior to the 1929 legislation. After each census through 1910, a law was passed to distribute one representative per 30,000. If we continued on this course, this would give us approximately 10,100 house representatives today (e.g. based on 301 million population per US Census).

Why is this important? With this many representatives, it would not be possible for lobbyists to have influence. At 1 representative for every 30,000 people, the representative would be easily accessible to his/her constituents. The representative wouldn't need a large staff effectively isolating them from their constituents.

Logistically, it would be impossible to have all 10K plus representatives at the same location. With today's technology, this isn't a problem at all. And, with today's terrorists risks, putting them all in the same brick and mortar building isn't too smart an idea.

Technology allows for this high number of representatives to work in collaborative sessions such as committees, within secure VPN sessions, using web casts, screen sharing, teleconferencing, and other such tools commonly used in today's business world. This technology allows for secure and accurate voting and audit trails without the costs of representatives traveling back to their home towns.

Just think - Everyone would be able to visit their local US House Representative within just a short distance from their home; town meetings would be common place... and he/she would actually be rooted at home - to hear and represent their people’s views.

Finally - the state representation would be fairly divided such that Alaskan voters don't, by virtue of the math, have a vote 3 times more powerful than a Californian.

My economist friend has a website you can reference for more information: http://www.greatervoice.org/