The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Gordon L. Weil formerly wrote for the Washington Post and other newspapers, served on the U.S. Senate and EU staffs, headed Maine state agencies and was a Harpswell selectman.
Jared Golden is trying to close a circle that’s as old as the Constitution.
As one of Maine’s U.S. House members, he wants the House to take a new look at an old subject. He has proposed a committee to look at numerous electoral reforms, including adding members to the House of Representatives.
During the drafting of the Constitution, the Framers debated the size of the House. The original argument was so heated that it was the sole issue that caused George Washington to speak out at the Constitutional Convention.
How many people should be represented by a member of the House? Too few would be undemocratic and but too many might be hard to manage. James Madison, the chief drafter of the Constitution and later the fourth president, argued the problem would solve itself. As more states joined, the House would naturally grow.
That worked until 1900, when the number of members stopped at 435. In 1929, it was formally frozen there. When Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii had joined, their seats were taken from other states.
The result is that the number of people in any single House district is now larger than the entire population of some states. Each Maine district includes more people than the entire population of the state of Wyoming. The math shows that a voter in Wyoming has more power than a voter in Maine.
An easy path to voter equality would be to set the population for each district across the country at the population of the least populous state, Wyoming. I calculate that would increase the House to about 573 members, an added 138 seats. Even a larger House could make sense.
Adding new states should mean more seats were added, as originally intended. The number of House seats should also increase as the national population grows. The purpose should be to keep the House representative and its members in touch with voters.
That increase would still leave the U.S. with a higher population per representative than any other major nation. Citizens would remain distant from their representatives, and members might remain limited as true representatives of their people’s pulse.
One advantage of expansion would be the need for thorough redistricting into smaller districts. That would make racial or political gerrymandering more difficult by making districts more compact. And it would certainly open the way for many new faces in Congress, which could enable more women and minorities to gain seats.
With a larger House, each member would not need to be assigned to several committees. Assigned to fewer committees, they would have more time to become more expert. There might also be more committees or subcommittees, allowing each to have a far sharper focus than is possible today.
House expansion, allowing members to become more expert on specific subjects, is not political daydreaming; it could turn out to be critically important.
The Supreme Court is moving steadily toward stripping regulatory agencies of their independent powers. When it completes its works, perhaps quite soon, many of their decision-making powers would end up with the president. Yet regulation is nothing more than powers that Congress could itself exercise by law. Congress, not the president, could take on more responsibility.
A larger Congress should include enough members that focused House committees could take on more detailed decision-making. Such targeted committees could produce strict, general rules, allowing less room for special interests to work out deals with regulators behind closed doors. If Congress fails to act, it will continue to lose its powers to the president.
There’s another benefit to the proposal for expanding the House. Many want the Electoral College vote for president to better align with the popular vote. One major reason they can misalign is the unbalanced voting power of some states over others. Each state’s Electoral College vote is the sum of the number of its House and Senate members.
If the House were larger, the Electoral College would be larger. The number of voters per electoral vote would be closer to equal than it is now. With electoral votes better distributed based on population, the electoral vote will come closer to reflecting the popular will.
Of course, each state would retain at least one House seat and two senators, no matter its population. That’s what the Constitution requires and would prevent a fully popular vote for president.
While amending the Constitution is almost impossible given today’s political divide plus and the growing efforts by the Supreme Court to apply its constitutional views, some issues like term limits or maximum ages of officials cannot be addressed. But Congress can change the number of House members, which could breathe some new life into an old system.
Unlike many of his colleagues who routinely accept the current system, Golden has a good idea that could produce major bipartisan reform. It’s worthy of study and action.
