I believe that the US should expand the size of the House of Representatives to give it more even apportionment. The current number of representatives, 435, and the fact that the difference in population between the least populated and most populated state is around a factor of 80, makes it hard to have a balanced allotment of representatives. If the House of Representatives expanded it’s number of members to a larger amount, to around 1,000 members, and representation was reallotted to the states, then the value of every citizens vote would be more even and fair.
Expanding the number of Representatives would lower the average population of congressional districts nationwide. The current average population is 710,000. Expanding the size of the body to 1,000 members would decrease the average population of each district to around 309,000 citizens per district. This would likely result in Wyoming having two districts and Montana having three or four. Decreasing the size of the districts would also give each representative smaller constituencies to represent, which would likely increase their involvement district wide, and incentivize them to vote with their conscience, as they would not be as politically motivated to vote to gain support of different parts of their base. It would also lower the barriers to entry for running for congress, hopefully resulting in a lower number of career politicians running for congress, and encouraging more “average Joe” types with deeper roots in their communities to seek election. With more elections to spread their limited resources across, the Republican and Democratic parties might also lose some of their grip on the arena of politics, which they currently have in a stranglehold. Expansion would encourage a more diverse set of ideas to reach Washington.
If this expansion were to occur, it would likely require a constitutional amendment to provide the necessary mandate for such a significant change. In addition, the Capitol building would likely not be sufficient to accommodate the new members of Congress. A new building would likely be required, and for the first time since 1800, the permanent meeting place of our congress would be moved. These represent some of the most obvious and daunting obstacles to enacting such a large scale change as this. As such, whether this change would be feasible in a political sense is a more nuanced question. In theory, this idea could solve a lot of the problems present in our current system. But a lot of the problems in our current system benefit those who hold the power to make change in our current system, thus creating a conflict of interest which practically ensures that the status quo will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future. It would likely require a large scale social movement in which regular Americans, regardless of political affiliation, see this change as the just thing to do to ensure a more evenly representative congress, and a more robust form of democracy.

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