Q: You must be insane! Isn’t Congress in a big enough mess already? You want to make it larger?

A: Why, exactly, is Congress in a mess? Relative to the size of the American population, the House is now one-third the size it was in 1910. If a smaller Congress actually worked better, it should be by now a model of hyper-efficiency. Instead, as it has gotten smaller and smaller, the problems have gotten bigger and bigger.  Putting more and more power in fewer hands has not worked. For representative democracy to work, it has to keep a dispersed, local connection. More people simply require more representation.

Q: How long would a fix take? Would it require amending the Constitution?

A: Back in 1910, the House decided in the course of one year to limit the number of members. They did not need a Constitutional amendment then to do that. Changing the size of the House again could be done in the same way and time frame as in 1910.

Q: How big should the House be?

A: There are several proposed solutions. Please refer to either the papers in the Library section for details of those plans, or look in the About section for a quick summary.