Reform Proposal: Increase Size of the U.S. House

Currently there are 435 members of the House of Representatives. This means that each Representative represents over 685,000 people in Congress. In some cases, such as the Representative from South Dakota, there is only one Representative for the entire state. All of these members have to run every two years, and, because of the size of their districts, they have to raise a lot of money to run competitive campaigns.

Almost every proposal to reform campaigns for Congress involves cutting down contributions, but they are never successful. Here is an idea that hasn't been tried: reduce the cost of campaigns. How? By tripling or even quadrupling the size of the House of Representatives. Go from the present size of 435 Representatives to 1305 or even 1740 Representatives.

By increasing the size of Congress, you would decrease the cost of campaigning. Instead of representing 685,000 people, each member would be representing 228,000 people at 1305 Representatives or 171,000 people at 1740. It is much easier to advertise yourself to 228,000 people or 171,000 people than it is to 685,000.

Cities would pick up more representatives, and so would suburbs, and small towns. It would be much easier for members of Congress to stay in touch with their constituents if they were representing fewer people. It would also be easier to mount challenges to such members because the cost of campaigning would be less.

The present size of the House of Representatives has been at this number since Hawaii and Alaska came into the Union. During the time, the population of the United States has increased dramatically. It is time to bring Congress back in touch with the people by increasing the number of Representatives. In fact, it is overdue.