Slightly expand the House: The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 has outlived its usefulness

By Kevin “Coach” Collins

 Expanding the House is an idea whose time has come. Using a slightly different formula for apportioning Congressional seats would give us a House that is much more in line with American values. So much of what the federal government does is based on merely what the federal government wants to do rather than what the Founding Fathers designed. This makes it hard to separate original intent from political whim.

 For instance, we take for granted that United States Senators must be elected. Yet before the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913 states were free to elect or select their Senators.

We also believe the rule requiring only 435 members in the House of Representatives is inviolable. Nevertheless, this cap is in place only because the Congress passed The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. The Founding Fathers had no such vision; in fact the very purpose of the Census was as a way to periodically reapportion and expand the House to reflect changes in population.

Montanans’ votes worth less

The Founding Fathers would never approve of Montana having one Representative serving 958,000 people and Rhode Island with only 100,000 more residents having two Representatives each serving only 530,000 people.

Besides making Montanans’ votes count for less, this provides a built-in advantage for Rhode Island and other out of step liberal places like New York City. Mega districts like Montana has virtually insure substandard service from their lone Representative.

While still much too high, setting the Congressional district population limit at roughly 700,000 should work better and provide us with a Congress more reflective of the will of the people. Certainly the very Blue Rhode Island doesn’t come near reflecting the right of center politics of a majority of Americans, yet its Electoral College vote is larger than both Montana Alaska and other states with only one Representative.

 New York City and a “700,000 population” formula

Even if New York City could prove its claim to 8 million legal residents, using this “700,000 constituents” formula would remove two seats from the liberal bastion’s 13 member delegation and four if illegal aliens are kept out of the Census count.

Allowing Congressional District populations to balloon up near one million and thus diluting the strength of “one man one vote” is unfair and although Constitutional is clearly a violation of the original intent of the Founding Fathers’ plan.

Dividing our population into smaller districts would result in a House of Representatives more attuned to the will of the people and better able to deliver important constituent services.

A House of Representatives sent from districts of roughly 700,000 in population would add just eight more seats, but make an important impact on how our federal government works.

While we are working our way through the many malfunctions of the Congress we ought to carefully consider repealing The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. It has out lived its usefulness.

To learn more about this issue use these links: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=200

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2009/10/making-house-bigger-astute-bloggers.html   

This day in history December 3

1929: Proving he had no understanding of what had just happened, Republican President Herbert Hoover announced that the worst effects of the stock market crash were behind the nation and the American people had regained faith in the economy.

Remember we have work to do. Join your local TEA party and Republican County Committees to make sure real conservatives get our nominations.

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