Facts:
- For 130 years the House was in constant growth, but in 1911 its size was finally limited, to 435 representatives.
- Since 1911 the amount of citizens, our population, has gradually increased to be three times what it was.
- Rein Taagepera calculated the "best" amount of representative there should be using the "cubic root law" and they got 669 representatives.
- Representative Jim Clyburn, D South Carolina, thinks that it is tough enough representing 600,000 people and that there should be more representatives.
- Brian Ferderick polled a public opinion on the matter with results that showed that citizens are not in big support of raising the House's numbers. He polled: 20% for increase, 60% for the House to stay the same, and 20% for the House to decrease. Though he also polled a second time changing the wording so that it said there would be more representation for minorities and 33% vote for an increase.
Questions:
- If there were more representatives wouldn't the amount of power they held decrease significantly?
- Is there any extremely under-represented districts (e.g. a district that has a representative that is D while 49% of the district is R)?
- How much higher would the House's numbers be raised, three times like the population or maybe by the "cubic root law,"?
- Has there been any significant bills to reset the number of representative, decrease or increase?
- How do the members of the House feel, do they want it, or do they dislike the idea because it would take away from their power?
Opinion: Well my take on this is almost a neutral one, while I would think it is great that there is more representative for the people, meaning better rep., it would also take power away from each district. In the end I do feel its current size is too small, but I would not like to see a drastic increase, maybe one that takes place. But then again I'm also not a big fan of states in general. My opinion on the size is if we are going to have representatives for each district/ region, we are going to have to do it right by representing to the best of the government's abilities.
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