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Congress Is Broken. Let’s Fix It.
The founders gave us a wonderful system, and it has served us well for over 230 years. This I must believe, as an American. Those people spent a lot of time working out how best, considering all of history, to make a nation last. So, what is this system they created? Broken down into relevant parts, it is the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Executive (no branch, they didn’t create the three letter alphabet soup that now is placed under the Executive), and the Justice System.
Why so many moving parts? First off, it’s true that the people, and what they think, matters. However, people are subject to flights of popular fantasy (see: Democrats), and our constitution respects this. So we get a lot of parts to our federal government to try and respect both what people think right now, but also to temper those thoughts with time.
The House is “chosen every second Year by the People of the several States,” by electors as necessary, and may impeach people. This group represents the Will of the People, and, at the time of election, not delayed at all. Whatever is in the popular mood will be represented here. At the first census, there were 105 representatives, for one representative per 37 thousand Americans.
State Legislatures, although not actually a part of the Federal Government, are a very important to the workings of federalism. Choose them as you please, People of the several States, and the feds will work with you. Perhaps they are chosen every year, perhaps every two, perhaps every ten. Whatever it is, this body represents the Will of the People, though delayed by some number of years (let’s call it at least one, due to my ignorance on these matters in 1788).
The Executive is chosen by Electors, themselves chosen in the manner dictated by the State Legislatures. The Executive represents the Will of the People, delayed by at least a year.
The Senate (as originally intended) is “composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof,” and they keep a term of 6 years. This body represents the Will of the People, delayed by (at least) one to seven years.
The Judicial Branch consists of judges that serve a lifetime tenure (let’s call it thirty years), and are appointed by a joint effort of the Executive and the Senate. Since only half the senate must confirm, the Justices chosen, at the time of their choosing, represent the Will of the People, delayed by at least five years, and at the time of their retirement represent the Will of the People delayed by, perhaps, thirty five years.
All in all, our government is pretty immune to the whims of the People of the Several States, while still respecting their wishes on current legislation. Except we did a few things to screw it up.
1913 – We passed the 17th Amendment, making the Senate represent the Will of the People delayed by between zero and six years, and cut the State Legislatures mostly out of the loop.
1929 – A good year, I’m sure, except for a little thing passed in June, called the Reapportionment Act of 1929, with which Congress gave up. Congress was tired of redistricting, and figuring out a new number of electors every time there was a census, so they permitted states to do their own gerrymandering, fixed the number of representatives at 435. With the 1920 Census giving us 106 million people, each Congressman represented 244 thousand Americans.
1940 – Congress decided that giving up was smart, so they decided that future reapportionment would be automatic. Each member of the House represented 326 thousand Americans.
By changing our Congress so completely in just 30 years, we have made a right mess of it today. With about 320 million people in the nation today, each member of the House represents 736 thousand Americans. Congress is slow, partisan, and hated by everybody.
Something cool happened between 1940 and now. We got computers. We can get 8 thousand people to vote on something in a matter of seconds, tally the votes, put them on screen, and record who voted for what for public records (to show no funny business while tallying votes). And this is how our House of Representatives should work.
We should pass a 28th amendment repealing the 17th. Of course constitutional amendments take time, so in the meanwhile we should declare that, with the 2020 census, Congress shall grow the House to represent 40 thousand Americans per member. That gives us 8 thousand representatives. Manhattan would have 41. Dallas would have 29. This will even get rid of those nagging for an abolition of the Electoral College, since with 8100 electors there should be a much more representative number of electors allocated to each state. Congresspeople would have smaller numbers of people to convince, smaller places to run campaigns, fewer dollars needed to reach those people, and life would get drastically better.
Let’s fix Congress: make the House of Representatives Represent us, and the Senate represent our States.
Published in General
No they don’t have to . They should but they won’t because it works to get votes.
All conservative criticism of the GOP and Trump on spending should be in this context.
A large expansion of super expensive bloviating prima Donna’s competing for face time on cable TV would be the main event.
But your proposal is to have 98.7% of Electoral College be based on population. Currently it is 80%, which is too high.
Hard to picture the logistics of 8000 Congress critters!
They certainly would not be able to meet in one room the way they do now. I guess it could be done if everything were online, and most of their time was spent in their committees with, what – 200 members on each committee? Even so, imagine a Skype with 200 people!
I suppose they could vote online but there would be no calling of the role. No one could endure the reading of 8000 names while they each said Yea or Nay.
And would we have to pay 8000 of these people!? I can’t imagine that being money well spent.
How about we just give Congress less to do and return most functions to the States the way it was supposed to be?
The money they waste in programs dwarfs their costs as senators.
Ditto.
The Congressional Apportionment Amendment has been pending since Sep 25, 1789. Had it been adopted, it would have been the first amendment to the US – so the founders thought it pretty important.
It set the representation level at 1/30,000 until there were 100 in the House and then upped the ratio to 1/40,000 until 200. Following that milestone, the max is 1/50,000. This translates to 6500 house members. Each census would add about 10% of that number. (2000 – 2010 would have added 600 Representatives)
You don’t have to work that hard to get this one ratified – it has been pending since 1789 without an expiration date and you only need 27 more states to ratify it.
FYI there were 12 amendments proposed to the first congress following the adoption of the constitution. This is the only one that hasn’t been ratified. The 27th amendment (congressional salaries) only took 202 years to become the law of the land, don’t give up hope.
The electoral college implications are less profound than you might think.
There are about 3000 counties in the US – there would be on average 2.667 representatives per, so as long as proportional electoral votes occur at the same time, then whoever has more broad demographic appeal ought to win.
The problem is that the guy who was put in charge of writing it was against it and reversed the meaning through one word. Instead of capping Congressional districts at 50,000 people, it makes it at least 50,000 people per district with no upper limit. That’s why it was never passed. Why bother with the current wording?
Quoting the amendment
I read that as an unlimited number representatives with a max representation of 1 per 50K
So, we’d be better off with 8,000 people handing out pork than the 500 we now have?
Nope. There can be no more than one rep per 50K people. That does not mean the ratio cannot be 1 rep per 1M people. And having people misread it was what the guy was hoping for. He made a one word change that nobody noticed at the time, and it reversed everything. I believe the initial draft said:
That would mean that 1:49K was fine, but 1:51K would be right out.
Or 8,000 people jealously guarding the public bourse rather than colluding with each other to hand it out?
Yes. Because in order to make that system work you have to build coalitions and pay attention to your actual constituents. Can you imagine Nancy Pelosi wielding the power she has now while dealing with 2000-3000 colleagues?
The tenure system – gone.
Pork – has to take a different form and can probably be rendered moot just via the application of sunlight.
Can you imagine the crisis that the Sunday talk shows will have to go through to list speakers?
6500 representatives equal a dilution of congressional power.
So if I don’t believe this, I’m not an American? Or is it an indication you haven’t thought about that possibility? There’s nothing wrong with thinking that the Founders got some things or a lot of things wrong. After all, slavery was acknowledged in the constitution.
Just a nit.
Regarding your proposal on the House of Representatives, it’s true that the number of representatives is determined by statute. But consider, the more representatives you add to the house, the more the electoral college is affected. Smaller states do have a small advantage under the present system. And it’s for that reason, your proposed change would not make it past the Senate, since senators from small states would not be inclined to vote for it. For that matter, incumbent members of the house would wouldn’t want to devalue their position either. Also, while electronic voting would work for house members, the constitution does mandate that Congress meet in one place. If you’re thinking they would just vote on legislation from their home states, that would require a constitutional amendment.
You’re wrong about that. States always determined district boundaries under the constitution. The federal courts have involved themselves in that process for civil rights reasons based on constitutional amendments passed during Reconstruction. There has always been some wiggle room for gerrymandering.
In the end, your handwaving won’t matter. Congress will always be unpopular, since it always was. People like their own representatives that they voted for, but not the representatives they didn’t.
And in other countries considered democracies, where they usually have a parliamentary form of government, the legislative part has also ceded power to their prime minister and cabinet. Their lower house can still get rid of the government (or executive) but backbenchers nevertheless have less and less power. I think human nature is involved in a fundamental way, since this phenomenon is so widespread.
The strongest power Congress has short of impeachment, is the power of the purse. Whenever Congress has tried a standoff between them and the president by threatening a government shutdown, the public has backed the president.
As long as that maintains, we will always have a weak Congress.
Mark Levin says that the Supreme Court should’ve been 18 years instead of lifetime. There would be less at stake with each appointment.
I tend to agree with that.
Nope. They deserve maximum sentences.
It has already passed Congress – just has to be ratified by the states, 27 remaining.
I’m not a fan of 100+ years old proposed amendments being voted on by state legislators. I’d find a way to get rid of that possibility. Also state legislatures should have the power to revoke their approval before teh amendment actually passes.
Also, no state legislature of a small state will vote for that, any more than a senator from a small state would.
It’s probably why it didn’t pass in the first place.
Is it just me or does anyone else find it is easier to keep track of what the Senators are doing than the Congressman and easier to keep track of the Congressman than the state senator or state rep? News organizations cover the big stories more than the local ones in my experience. I know this is a very contrarian idea, but that’s the way it seems to work for me. I think that having 8000 Congressmen would make it about impossible to follow how anyone is voting.
Once again, the reason it did not pass was because with the wording, it was useless and meaningless as an amendment.
I don’t know, the 28th amendment was a pretty good one.
Passed 202 years after congressional approval.
27th, perhaps?
And an infinitely expanded federal payroll with all those additional aides, offices, trips home, etc., etc.
Nope. If we have thousands of legislators, they don’t need aides. They can do the work themselves. And with modern electronics, there is no reason they shouldn’t do it from home in their district with their constituents.
This *is* possible, probably. It is not explicitly allowed and not adjudicated, but four states have rescinded their approval of ERA.
My mistake.
Not really. Budget and veto…
There is lots of empty office space in the DC area. Nothing says that a congress critter has to have more than 0 aides.