I love this idea!
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/Most people understand why we have 100 Senators, the formula having been clearly defined in the Constitution. But why do we have 435 House Representatives? Why not 434 or 436? Why not 400 or 500? Who determines how many Representatives we’re allowed and by what authority? And how did they arrive at this number?
As was intended by our nation’s Founding Fathers, from 1790 to 1910 the size of the House of Representatives was increased every ten years in order to keep up with the growing population of these united states. Since 1913 the size of our House of Representatives has remained constant at 435 (except for a temporary increase to 437 for four years).
The reason the size of the House has remained unchanged for over 90 years is quite simple. Increasing their number requires that the Representatives surrender some of their existing power, which runs entirely contrary to human nature. In short, we the people have failed to protect our democratic legacy.
The historical shift towards oligarchy was formally institutionalized in 1941 when Congress passed a law permanently fixing the number of House seats at 435. In doing so, the members of the House unconstitutionally arrogated to themselves a permanent and growing power base by unilaterally freezing the number of districts and thereby creating the most elite & powerful private club in the history of the planet (other than the Senate).
As a result, the average House district today is 22 times the Constitutional minimum of thirty-thousand. Thirty-thousand.org believes that this trend towards oligarchy — resulting from the natural tendency of those in power to become entrenched — has created a precarious situation for our great republic. This web pamphlet attempts to explain why this is so, how it happened, and what we can do about it.
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