Does America Need More Congressmen?

On August 8, 1911, President William Howard Taft signed the Apportionment Act of 1911, which increased the membership of the U.S. House of Representatives from 391 to 433. The act also included a provision for adding two new seats if and when Arizona and New Mexico were granted statehood, which they were the following year. The Reapportionment Act of 1929 permanently capped the number of representatives at 435, where it has remained ever since except for a temporary expansion to 437 members in 1959 when both Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the union as America’s 49th and 50th states.

The first federal law governing the size of the House and the method of allotting representatives, the Apportionment Act of 1792, was signed into law by President George Washington in April of that year. It followed the guidelines set forth in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution of the United States which requires that seats in the House of Representatives be apportioned among the various states according to the population disclosed by the most recent decennial census, but only counting "free persons" and “three-fifths of all other persons”, including slaves.

Following the Civil War, the 14th Amendment eliminated the three-fifths clause by stating that "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed." As a result of the 1870 census fully counting black Americans for the first time, the House was enlarged by 50 seats (21%).

Throughout most of America’s history, new seats were added or redistributed based on the national census conducted every 10 years, with the exception of the Apportionment Act of 1842, which reduced the number of congressional seats from 242 to 223. Today, the average size of a congressional district has more than tripled in size – from 210,328 inhabitants based on the 1910 Census, to 761,169 according to the 2020 Census.

Delaware, the 45th most populous state has the largest average district size, with 989,948 people; and Montana, the 44th most populous state, has the smallest, with 542,113 people.

And therein lies the problem.

When George Washington signed the aforementioned Apportionment Act of 1792, it established 105 congressional districts with 33,000 people in each one. Today, a congressman represents 23 times as many people.

Sure, we no longer travel on horseback, and yes, we now have telephones and the internet at our disposal, allowing congressmen to communicate more often and more effectively with their constituents. But the fact remains that one person cannot adequately represent the interests of three-quarters of a million people in the same manner – and to the same degree – that our Founders envisioned. Nor, for that matter, can a single representative cover a landmass the size of Wyoming or Alaska... and yet, that is exactly what Harriet Maxine Hageman (R-WY) and Mary Peltola (D-AK) are required to do. Hageman’s congressional district encompasses 97,000 square miles whereas Peltola’s district exceeds 665,000 square miles, much of which is only accessible by boat or plane.

I realize that the current House chambers are at (or near) full capacity, so an expanded House of Representatives would require a new building twice its original size. However, if Donald Trump makes good on his campaign promise to shut down the Department of Education – and if Elon Musk and Vivek Ramasamy reduce the federal workforce by their stated goal of 75% - there should be some choice real estate available in Washington D.C. at bargain basement prices.