What Are the Requirements to Run for House of Representatives

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55

Why 435?

The House of Representatives has had 435 members since 1912. Expanding it would correct historical wrongs—and perchance reduce polarization, too.

By Thomas Downey

from Wintertime, No. 55 – 18 MIN READ

Tagged Electoral ReformHouse of Representatives

U.S. Capitol Edifice under renovation. Photo by Macieklew via CC 2.0

For several years I take been request former colleagues in the House of Representatives, "Why are there 435 members in the House?" They usually respond with a shrug or a brusque express joy and say, "Okay, you must know. Tell me." The number of congressional members is not mandated by the Constitution. Nor does the size of congressional districts announced in the document. The number 435 was adopted in 1929, and it was a number driven by racism, xenophobia, and the self-interest of members. Yet information technology could all alter with an act of Congress.

The Framers of the Constitution believed the "people's branch" of authorities—the House—should grow in size as the population grew, thereby guaranteeing the people access to their elected representatives. The showtime Congress in 1789 had districts of 33,000 constituents; today'south districts have 740,000. Districts demand to exist smaller, and the membership of the Firm larger. That change in law would eliminate a xc-twelvemonth monument to discrimination, make the Business firm more autonomous, and brand the Electoral Higher more than representative of the population of our country. Smaller districts, accompanied by redistricting and electoral reform, will besides create more competitive districts, which will hateful less virulently partisan candidates—and, hopefully, legislators. Republican candidates running in cities and the suburbs will detect information technology hard to be xenophobic or to oppose reproductive rights and action on climate modify. Meanwhile, Democrats in rural areas will be similar the Southern Democrats I served with in the House in the 1970s and '80s: pro-business, pro-life, but also pro-civil rights. This may not cease political polarization, but it is a vital get-go step in reforming the House.

It Started in Philadelphia

The reply to "Why 435" starts with the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and three contentious issues regarding the cosmos of the Senate and the Firm: the limerick of the Senate; whether and how to count the enslaved population; and the size of the congressional districts.

On the first matter, James Madison had strenuously argued for proportional representation in both bodies. He believed this was essential for a strong national government. The mid-Atlantic small-scale states—Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey—were obdurate: equal representation in the Senate or nothing.

The second issue was how to count enslaved persons. In 1783, the Congress, drastic for acquirement, sought to impose a per-land levy based on population, which raised the issue of whether and how to count the enslaved. The Southern states argued against the counting of any slaves because it would keep their revenue contribution lower; the Northern members wanted to count all slaves. Madison proposed a three-fifths compromise for revenue purposes—three out of every five of the enslaved population would be counted. Iv years later on, during the Constitutional Convention, the issue of how to count enslaved persons arose over again. This time the issue was not acquirement but representation, and the positions of the North and South were reversed. By 1787, enslaved persons made upwards about 40 percent of the populations of Maryland and the Southern states. Those states wanted to count enslaved persons in the aforementioned as "free people." Some Northern states, concerned that the Southern states would "import slaves" to increment their population and thus their number of representatives, argued that no enslaved persons should be counted. However others argued for another three-fifths rule—three of every five enslaved persons would be counted.

Finally, they had to determine on the number of people that constituted a congressional commune—and thus the size of the House of Representatives. The only fourth dimension George Washington, the convention'south chairman, spoke was to debate for smaller districts of thirty,000 persons versus the leading alternative of 40,000 persons.

The 2nd matter was settled first, when, in June 1787, the three-fifths rule was agreed to. In July, the "Swell Compromise" passed v-iv, and small states were guaranteed equal representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House. Finally, on the concluding twenty-four hours of the convention, September 17, Washington's smaller district choice was adopted.

The debate on the first matter, the size of the Firm, remained contentious during the country constitutional ratifying conventions, with states arguing for more members to improve constituents' access to them equally well as a means to prevent corruption. In 1789, James Madison, and then running for a House seat, had written a campaign alphabetic character to the voters of his district promising them a "bill of rights" and a requirement to increment the size of the House. These amendments were the most important issues in his entrada for Congress against James Monroe, his opponent and so and, 28 years later, his successor to the presidency. He defeated Monroe 1,308 to 972. Yes, the districts where much smaller then. Lesson learned, Congressman Madison went to New York every bit member of the First Congress and authored a series of amendments at present known every bit the Bill of Rights. His proposed First Amendment was a guarantee that the Business firm would begin with a defined number of members—which was not included in the Constitution—and would grow according to a specific formula laid out in the amendment. Information technology cruel short of ratification by one state. Had it been ratified, the freedoms nosotros now savour every bit part of the Showtime Amendment, including speech and the press, would have been the Second Amendment.

The 1920 Census: White, Rural America Reacts

For the next 120 years, from 1790-1910, membership in the Business firm of Representatives grew as the population increased and equally new states were admitted to the Union—with the exception of 1840, when the Congress reduced the size of the House membership. The Reapportionment Act of 1911 increased House membership from 386 to 433 and allowed a new member each from the Arizona and the New Mexico territories when they joined the Union. In 1912, Fenway Park opened, the Titanic sank, and the House had 435 members. Fenway Park has inverse, sea liners are ancient history—simply the Business firm notwithstanding has the same number of representatives today as it did and then, even as the population has more than tripled—from 92 one thousand thousand to 325 one thousand thousand.

Later the 1920 Census determined that more than Americans lived in cities than in the rural areas, a nativist Congress with a racist Southern core faced its decennial responsibleness of reapportioning a state that had experienced a large growth in immigrants. The population had grown in ten years by xv per centum, to 106 one thousand thousand. Recent immigrants lived in vibrant enclaves with their fellow countrymen. They spoke their female parent tongues, shopped at indigenous stores and markets, partied at indigenous clubs, and attended ethnic plays and movies. While 85 percent of Americans were native born, Firm members debating the effects of the Census routinely referred to the large cities as "foreign" and too much like the "former world." In 1921 and 1924, Congress passed anti-immigration legislation, the 2d establishing a "national origins formula" that severely restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. Earlier anti-inclusion acts had already restricted immigration from Asia.

The congressional hearings held after that 1920 Census exposed the country's racial separation and its urban-rural divide. The Firm Census Committee's beginning hearing included African-American witnesses James Weldon Johnson and Walter White of the NAACP, Monroe Trotter from the National Equal Rights League, and George H. Harvey, general counsel of the Colored Council of Washington, who detailed the systematic discrimination confronting blackness voting. White testified that anyone helping blacks vote in certain Florida communities would be "subjected to mob violence." The panel demanded that Congress use the Fourteenth Amendment'south provisions—specifically Section 2, which deals with apportionment and representation matters—to reduce a state's congressional delegation every bit a punishment for denying its citizens the right to vote.

The Southerners on the commission, offended past the African Americans' presence, rejected the prove of discrimination. Representative William Larsen, Democrat of Georgia, said: "In my dwelling, ane,365, I believe is the number, n——-s are registered. . . . We have a white principal, which has nothing to do with the general election. The n——— does not participate in the white main." He explained that blacks choose non to vote in the general ballot because their political party—the Republican Political party—"lacked the strength to win," as historian Charles W. Eagles put it.

Meanwhile, equally Congress debated how to reapportion the state, women got the correct to vote, and booze was banned. Though World War I brought the country together, the end of the war brought two years of a "red scare" in which labor unions and "dissenters" of all types were harassed, jailed, and deported past Woodrow Wilson'south fanatical Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who feared the spread of Soviet-manner Communism.

Past 1924, the Ku Klux Klan had iv million members. The Klan was organized, lethal, and rapidly expanding to the West and Midwest. This "second ascension" of the Klan had begun in 1915, and its membership was anti-blackness, anti-Cosmic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, and pro-Prohibition. In the South, the Klan was Democratic, in the W and Midwest it was Republican, and everywhere its members saw a country where white Protestants were losing power and immigrants were ascendant.

In 1929, having failed to agree on how to business relationship for the growth in the land'due south population, the Firm set by law the number of members at 435, or the 1912 level. Keeping the number at 435 ensured that Congress would not recognize the changes brought nigh by the African-American migration and the immigrant population growth in the Northern, Midwestern, and Western cities. The Due south and rural America, which dominated the House, rejoiced. At the terminal minute, the Republican authors of the bill removed a decades-long requirement that districts be compact, contiguous, and of equal population. Us were now free to describe districts of varying sizes and shapes, or to elect their representatives at big. (At-large representation had really existed earlier, at the offset of the commonwealth, simply was made illegal over the course of the nineteenth century.)

A Century-Plus Later on, Information technology's Time for Modify

No one would have imagined that the racist, anti-urban, capricious number of 435 would last, unchanged, for 108 years. Certainly non the Framers of the Constitution, who believed that the Firm should grow with each decennial Census. The "bargain" of 1929 that fixed the Firm at 435 members has allowed the boilerplate size of a congressional district to abound from 230,000 people to approximately 780,000 in 2020. Communication with constituents today is more and more electronic than personal. Some members still do in-person boondocks halls, though social media makes organizing to disrupt them easy. Every bit the districts grow in size, the likelihood of having personal contact with House members diminishes.

During my 18 years in Congress, the thousands of unscripted, often poignant, crazy, and contentious moments with my constituents shaped me and gave them a run a risk to take my measure. Today, members and their constituents can instantaneously communicate with each other, merely a digital presence is no substitute for the real thing. It is like watching Quaternary of July fireworks on your iPhone.

So what to do? I propose we do what the Founding Fathers thought made sense: Increase the size of the Firm of Representatives as the population grows and so that it tin get representative of the people again. I once raised the idea of increasing the size of the Business firm with a prominent member. The response did non surprise me: "Oh, they don't like 435 of usa now. Surely they won't like more of us." Probably true if the issue is presented solely as increasing the size of an already extremely unpopular and little-trusted institution. Merely what if the argument is non just nearly more members, simply rather smaller and more representative districts and greater denizen access to their members? And what if the result is a more diverse group of representatives and even, possibly, a reduction in the polarization that paralyzes Congress today?

The first question is, what is the correct size of an expanded House? The Wyoming Rule provides one model for how to make up one's mind the size of new districts. It would decrease the number of people in a congressional district to the "lowest standard unit of measurement." The Constitution provides that each land is entitled to at least one representative. Wyoming existence currently the least populous land, its population (577,000) would be used to determine the "lowest standard unit," which would so be the number of people in each congressional commune across the state. To determine how many total members, the population of the state is divided by the "lowest standard unit."

In 2020, the U.S. population is estimated to exist 330-plus million. Wyoming's population is probable to be close to what it is today. That would mean congressional districts of approximately 577,000 or then people. Not exactly minor but significantly better than the 780,000 it is probable to be in 2020. The number of members in the House would increase by 142, from 435 to 577. Large enough to make a difference, but without being unwieldy. The Wyoming rule has the virtue of requiring only a statutory change.

Then size is the starting time question. Just it is non the only question. We also need to talk about how to expand the House. The idea of increasing the size of the House without the necessary electoral reforms would only exacerbate the absurd outcomes we see in states like North Carolina, where 50 percent of the votes cast in the 2022 election were for Democratic candidates yet Republicans won 10 of the state's xiii House seats. Like instances of gerrymandering in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are existence challenged in state courts. In that location is no alibi for assuasive either Democrats or Republicans to engage in partisan redistricting. Last June, the Supreme Court ruled five-iv in Rucho five. Common Cause that "partisan gerrymandering claims nowadays political questions across the reach of the federal courts"—a shameful dereliction of the Court'due south responsibility to protect the rights of all Americans to, every bit the minority wrote, "participate as in the political process." The Rucho determination is a return to 1940s Supreme Courtroom reasoning that electoral questions are best left to the political sphere, which the Court had overcome past 1962, when it ruled in Baker v. Carr that such political questions were indeed within the Courtroom'south purview. While we look for legislative activity, former Attorney General Eric Holder's National Democratic Redistricting Committee has vigorously fought a land-by-state battle to insure that the 2022 redistricting maps are nonpartisan. In North Carolina, the group's efforts were successful recently when a three-gauge panel ruled that new nonpartisan districts must replace the Republican gerrymandered program.

How practice we proceed simultaneously to aggrandize and reform? There are several thoughtful plans that could frame the debate. The identify to get-go is a package of election and voting reforms introduced by Maryland Democratic Congressman John Sarbanes that includes a provision for nonpartisan commissions in u.s.a. to examine how to depict district lines adequately. It passed the House in March, simply Senate Majority Leader McConnell, unsurprisingly, will not bring information technology up in the Senate.

Another possible change would be to give states the option to take some number of the added congressional seats and have them elected "at-large" on a statewide basis. Electing some members statewide will upshot in greater voter participation and more competitive House races, which is likely to hateful fewer extreme candidates. Hither'southward how it might piece of work. After the Census, in states receiving additional seats, parties would advance a list of statewide candidates. The full number of votes bandage for all the Democrats and Republicans running in the land's individual district races would exist tallied to determine which party's at-large candidates would be elected. Then, for example, if the votes bandage for Democrats running in all of the district races amounted to threescore percent of the total statewide vote—Democrats would receive 60 percentage of the at-large seats, and the Republicans would get 40 percent. The at-big concept is more than nuanced than this case and is near likely to make sense in more populated states. Many states will not qualify for an at-large seat, and some will get merely one or two seats, but even in those instances in that location would be a stiff incentive to maximize individual district turnout; at-big/statewide elections will drive both parties to field candidates in every commune in an effort to run upward the statewide voting totals. The days of candidates running unopposed would be over. Even in the districts that were overwhelmingly Democratic, the Republicans would all the same desire to field a serious candidate to increase their aggregate statewide vote total. The aforementioned would be true for Democrats in stiff Republican areas.

More contest for every seat will have a moderating upshot on both parties. In order to be effective in maximizing their vote, parties will have to field candidates who appeal to more than than a narrow ideological base. In a further endeavor to drive up turnout the parties might want to field at-big candidates of prominence: Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, Beto O'Rouke in Texas, Andrew Gillum in Florida, Michael Bloomberg and Shepard Smith in New York, Ashley Judd in Kentucky, and Madeleine Albright in Virginia.

Don't Forget the Electoral College

Increasing the total number of House members would also increase the size of the Electoral Higher past approximately 142, from 538 to 680 members.

What impact would this have? In sum, the more than populated states would increase their number of Electoral College votes significantly. Consider a comparing of Wyoming and Florida. Today, Wyoming, with a population of 577,000, gets 3 balloter votes—i electoral vote per 193,000 people. Florida, meanwhile, with a population of 21.3 million, gets 29 electors—one balloter vote for every 734,500 people. But if congressional districts were reduced from 720,000 people to 577,000, Florida would abound to 37 congressional districts, and 39 electors, while Wyoming would still have just the three. Ohio would get four more than congressional seats, and Michigan three more. The large winners of course would be California with 16 more seats and Texas with 15. This would translate into 71 electoral votes for California and 53 for Texas.

Of course, the small-scale states would hate this. Only the Electoral College has given small states disproportionate power throughout our history. Also, of course, slave states, in the beginning: The three-fifths compromise for counting enslaved people adopted at the Constitutional Convention gave the South more Electoral Higher votes, which resulted in 5 of the offset six presidents existence from Virginia. All five were slaveholders.

A constitutional subpoena to cancel the Electoral College would exist the best way to proceed, but it's extremely unlikely. Increasing the size of the Electoral College would reduce the small-state reward. The big and growing states—Florida, Texas, California, other Sun Belt states—will become more important to the outcome of the presidential election. Whether this increase in the larger states will favor one party over the other is non clear, but the means by which we elect a President will certainly be more representative of the population. And, of form, Nate Argent will accept to alter the proper noun of his website.

Time for a Debate

For 140 years, the right size of congressional districts was hotly debated. Yet we haven't had a serious contend on the size of Firm districts in ninety years, during which fourth dimension the country's population has more than than tripled. The stasis has left us an outlier amongst representative democracies. U.S. House districts are gigantic compared to "lower house" constituencies in Europe. Not bad U.k.'s House of Commons has 650 members, each representing nigh 110,000 people. France'due south Sleeping room of Deputies is 577, Germany'due south Bundestag is 709; both, nigh 100,000-plus people per constituency. The Japanese Diet'due south lower business firm with 465 members is the next closest in size to the U.South. Business firm, but its districts are much smaller, with virtually 272,000 people.

The Framers recognized that the population would abound and the state would change. The population has tripled since 1910, the demographic makeup of our land has changed, but that change is non matched in the makeup of the congressional membership. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2017, whites accounted for 81 percent of Congress but but 62 percent of the population. In the 2022 Congress, women make up 20 percentage of the membership, despite beingness just more than half the population. In the last five decades, the Hispanic population increased more than fivefold. Yet the percent of Hispanics in Congress, while it has grown, is still just shy of 8 percent. Expanding the House gives usa a adventure to have a legislative co-operative that is representative of the people in more means than one.

Many have said to me that the idea of more than members is simply crazy. Just what is truly crazy, sad, and inarguably objectionable is that a racist, nativist congressional decision of xc years ago still stands. Iv hundred and 30-v members is tantamount to a Amalgamated Battle Flag of numbers hiding in plain sight. Obviously there is no existent understanding of the Framers' intent that House districts grow in number as the population increases. Where are the "strict constructionists" when we really need them? While nosotros debate what questions to enquire on the next Demography form, there appears to be picayune recognition that the purpose of Article ane, Section ii of the Constitution was to determine the size of a growing House of Representatives.

Congress will not subtract the size of districts without a fight, of course. Why would any fellow member want to dilute his or her individual ability and dominance? But for democracy to work, democratic institutions must have the trust and support of the people. The Framers promised a people'south Firm. It is time to accolade that promise. Congress owes information technology to the American people to revisit the determination of 435 made 108 years ago and adopted into police force ninety years agone.

Visit your member of Congress, ask them why there are 435 members of the House; since y'all now know, you could educate them and the process of reform tin begin.

Clark Beind2000