Size of the United States House of Representatives
The size of the United States House of Representatives refers to total number of congressional districts (or seats) into which the land area of the United States proper has been divided. The number of seats is currently set at 435 voting representatives and five non-voting delegates for a total of 440 seats. Another non-voting delegate for the Northern Mariana Islands is set to be introduced in the 111th United States Congress on January 3, 2009.
The ideal number of members has been a contentious issue since the country's founding. George Washington objected to the original number of Representatives proposed at the Constitutional Convention as being too small[1]. In Federalist 55, James Madison argued that setting the initial number of Representatives at 65 was not a threat to liberty, stating, "I am unable to conceive that the people of America, in their present temper, or under any circumstances which can speedily happen, will choose, and every second year repeat the choice of, sixty-five or a hundred men who would be disposed to form and pursue a scheme of tyranny or treachery"[2]. Madison went on to argue that other constitutional safeguards, such as division of powers among the three branches of government and between the two houses of Congress, as well as the Article I, Section 6 provision banning Representatives from holding civil office, would be enough to prevent perfidy. Madison advocated keeping the number of Representatives within certain bounds:
Nothing can be more fallacious than to found our political calculations on arithmetical principles. Sixty or seventy men may be more properly trusted with a given degree of power than six or seven. But it does not follow that six or seven hundred would be proportionably [sic] a better depositary. And if we carry on the supposition to six or seven thousand, the whole reasoning ought to be reversed. The truth is, that in all cases a certain number at least seems to be necessary to secure the benefits of free consultation and discussion, and to guard against too easy a combination for improper purposes; as, on the other hand, the number ought at most to be kept within a certain limit, in order to avoid the confusion and intemperance of a multitude. In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.
Since each state is guaranteed one Representative under Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, the minimum size of the House would be 50 Representatives. This would convert it into a non-proportional, U.S. Senate-like body. At the other extreme, because the number of Representatives cannot exceed one for every thirty thousand, the maximum number of Representatives at this time would be approximately 10,100.
The first proposed amendment to the Constitution attempted to set a pattern for growth of the House along with the population, but was never ratified.
For a brief period from 1959 to 1962, the admission of the states of Hawaii and Alaska to the United States required the temporary addition of two additional representatives for a new total of 437 voting seats. The number of seats reverted to 435 following reapportionment after the 1960 census.
Delegates
There are an additional four delegates to the House of Representatives. They represent the District of Columbia and the territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico also elects a resident commissioner every four years. The Northern Mariana Islands does not currently elect any sort of representative to Congress; however, an act to add a delegate from the Northern Mariana Islands was signed into law on May 8, 2008. The CNMI will replace its Resident Representative in Washington DC with a non-voting delegate in the House following an election in November 2008.[3]
Controversy
During the period that the current U.S. Constitution has been in effect, the number of citizens per congressional district has risen from an average of 30,000 in 1789 to nearly 700,000 as of 2008. It has been suggested that a new reapportionment act is needed to significantly raise the number of representatives toward the end of creating more equitable districts. [4]
Past increases
The size of the House has increased as follows[5]:
Expansion would cause the United States Electoral College result to more closely reflect the national popular vote, as the number of Representatives would begin to dwarf the number of Senators, which is fixed at two per state. The Wyoming Rule, an idea with some contemporary currency, calls for expanding the House until the standard Representative-to-population ratio equals that of the smallest entitled unit (i.e. Wyoming). This proposal is primarily designed to address the fact that some House districts are currently nearly twice the size of others; for instance, there are about 944,000 residents in Montana's single district, compared to about 515,000 in Wyoming's. See List of U.S. states by population.
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