The more representative republic

One of Madison's good ideas never saw the light of day.

We all get upset at Congress from time to time, particularly when our representative isn’t all that representative of the opinions and political beliefs of the local population.

So I was intrigued after doing a little bit of light historical reading about the Bill of Rights that James Madison had initially proposed 19 amendments to the Constitution, which Congress whittled down to 12. Of that number, the last ten (3 through 12) survive as the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments of the Constitution. Of the two left over, it was left to a college sophomore at the University of Texas to realize that the amendment stating Congress could not increase their pay until an election had passed was still viable, and in a time period with a healthy distrust of Congressional power (the Reagan/Bush era) the rediscovered amendment was quickly adopted and became the 27th Amendment to the Constitution in 1992.

On the other hand, the remaining unratified amendment (known as Article the First) dealt with Congressional representation and the population of districts. It was Madison’s intention that the number of representatives grew with the population, which it did (without the amendment) for the first 150 years or so of our history. Madison’s thought was to have districts not exceeding 50,000 people, which isn’t way out of line with the initial proportionment in Article I of a district for every 30,000 people.

While there are some who claim the article was actually ratified back in the day and others leading a modest but largely abandoned effort to restore it, I think the principle (if not the numbers) have some merit. (It’s worth pointing out in this forum of mine that interest in Article the First seemed to peak along with the TEA Party and its renewed interest in our Constitution.) The problem with the initial Article the First was that it was clunky and unwieldy, as its numbers were somewhat arbitrary. However, the best estimate we have is that a House following Article the First would have over 6,000 members. (The argument for passage notes that, when you include staffers, Congress has WAY more than that number of people working for it, but only 435 full voting members are elected.)

In 2022 America, though, that 30,000 population per House member has grown to over 700,000. However, this conundrum is even worse in Delaware as it is the largest of the single House member states. For all intents and purposes, our Congressperson is one in a million - sadly, that doesn’t reflect on her ability to follow the Constitution or limit the federal government.

There are two key advantages to a greater number of elected representatives in the House. First and most obvious is that of closer representation to the body politic: depending on the size of the districts, even the reddish hue of Sussex County would probably split out with a couple Democrats representing portions of it, much like our state legislative delegation has one holdout Democrat among all its GOP members.

The other interesting aspect would be the effect on the Electoral College, particularly on states which aren’t winner-take-all (and with a larger number of representatives, other states may be inclined to go that route.) In a chart of persons per electoral college vote, Wyoming is often cited as the outlier because of its tiny population still getting three electoral votes. (Usually these are Democrats complaining because Wyoming hasn’t voted for a Democrat president since LBJ in 1964.) With a larger base of House votes, that advantage is negated.

The final number, then, gets to be a balancing act between the interests of having a more representative body in the House and one that actually can accomplish things. Using state-level situations, the question can be asked whether getting things done in New Hampshire (which has a massive, 400-member House for a population of 1.4 million) is more difficult than accomplishments in Delaware (62 members between House and Senate), Alaska (60 members between House and Senate), or Nebraska (49 members in one chamber.) I don’t think it would hurt to have a member of Congress who represents a population of 200,000 constituents. In Delaware’s case it would assure, barring some serious gerrymandering by the majority party, that Sussex County and Kent County would have their own Congressional representative, while New Castle County would get the other three. (For my friends on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, you would have two of your own - no more sharing with the other side of the Bay.)

This could be done with a simple change in the law, although I would prefer it become a Constitutional amendment as it was intended to be. The language of that amendment could be simple: ”Each of the several states shall have one Congressional representative for every 200,000 in citizen population.” Easy peasy, just cram the desks together a little bit more in the House.

I believe this would be a good compromise between Constitutional intent that may not have anticipated a nation of over 300 million souls and the present unwieldy situation where people in large districts feel unrepresented because their Congressperson isn’t local or from the same area of the state. Hopefully it would make the lobbyist’s job harder, too - it’s hard to spread graft around on a larger base of people.

It’s another thing to get down while we can still save this Republic.