The big news yesterday, of course, we that the Census Bureau had released its preliminary results for the 2020 decennial census:
In addition to these newly released statistics, today Secretary Raimondo delivered to President Biden the population counts to be used for apportioning the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. In accordance with Title 2 of the U.S. Code, a congressionally defined formula is applied to the apportionment population to distribute the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives among the states.
The apportionment population consists of the resident population of the 50 states, plus the overseas military and federal civilian employees and their dependents living with them overseas who could be allocated to a home state. The populations of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are excluded from the apportionment population because they do not have voting seats in Congress. The counts of overseas federal employees (and their dependents) are used for apportionment purposes only.
- After the 1790 Census, each member of the House represented about 34,000 residents. Since then, the House has more than quadrupled in size (from 105 to 435 seats), and each member will represent an average of 761,169 people based on the 2020 Census.
- Texas will gain two seats in the House of Representatives, five states will gain one seat each (Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon), seven states will lose one seat each (California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia), and the remaining states’ number of seats will not change based on the 2020 Census.
The emphasis is mine. Illinois is one of three states actually to lose population over the last ten years (the other two are Mississippi and West Virginia). I cannot speak for any state other than Illinois. Its population has decreased due to bad governance which has taken a number of different forms.
Now the squabbling begins. States with Republican-dominated legislatures will redraw district lines to benefit Republicans; states with Democratic-dominated legislatures will redraw district lines to benefit Democrats. The most bitter squabbling will take place in the states that are losing representatives. Incumbents will be pitted against each other in those states.
Every member of the House of Commons in the UK represents about 100,000 people. Every member of the Bundestag in Germany represents about 117,000 people. Every member of the Assemblée nationale in France represents about 117,000 people. Every member of the House of Representatives represents 761,169 people. One of these things is not like the other. If there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that we do not have meaningful democracy at the national level here.
It is better to compare Congress to other legislatures of other continental sized polities.
The EU parliament has 705 members serving 446 million citizens. India’s Lok Sabha has 543 for 1.4 billion citizens. Brazil Chamber of Deputies has 513 for 211 million citizens.
When viewed in that lens — the US is actually in line.
I am not against expanding the House; but I believe to have the political support of the small and large states required; you need to do a package deal to increase both the senate and house by 50%.
My thing to watch is California. Is losing a seat a one off — or like the Northeast/Mideast the start of multi-decade trend. A multi-decade trend in California would have incredible implications for national politics (decades from now).
If the role of the U. S. House of Representatives were as constrained as that of the European Parliament, I wouldn’t have as much problem with it being as small as it is. The EU Parliament has next to no budgetary authority and has no legislative initiative. It’s basically an advisory body.
I don’t know anything about India’s or Brazil’s legislatures so I can’t comment.
I think it depends on events. If California’s state government continues to behave as it has for the last several decades, it’s probably the start of a trend. It should be observed that without immigration California and New York’s populations would both have plummeted.
To tag onto Dave’s comment, we’ve seen federal-level representation decrease over time while the power and importance of federal-level action have increased. If federalism is going to continue to decline, then I think the national government has to have better representation which at least means a bigger House.
But honestly, I’d like to see more federalism, but America is too obsessed with national politics.
I admire the attempt at quantification. I’m dubious about precision. I always come back to this: the costs so obviously outweigh the benefits as to make precision analysis a fools errand, and second, in the late 60s we had a similar virus but we did Woodstock. And we are all still here. The current response is a global disgrace. I stuck this comment here only because the knock on effect has been to accelerate the emptying of the NE and Upper MW as people go to TX and the SE. You simply can’t find a house here right now.
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2021/04/27/economists-survey-of-lockdown-studies-finds-they-overestimate-benefits-and-underestimate-costs-n386155
Just a note of realism. The largest democratically elected legislature in the world is the German Bundestag at 709. Just as it was pointed out that a requirement for thorough discussion and collegial group dynamics at the Supreme Court suggests an upper limit of 7-9 Justices; similarly, a workable democratic legislature seems to have an upper limit at around 700 members.
Increasing the House by 50% is 653 members, which is at the limits. So the improvement can be done once and only gets this country to 1 Representative per 505K — which isn’t that much better then 1 Representative per 761K.
I agree that one possible fix is a renewed focus on subsidiarity; the only other way I see to improve representation is to introduce the use of direct democracy at the Federal level.
There’s research to back up the 7-9 level for an efficient meeting; I know of no comparable evidence about the upper limit of an effective legislative body. My general feeling is that a legislature of twice or even three times as many representatives would be a heckuva lot more representative and no more clumsy than the present Congress.
In the U. S. we have these things called “states” which until quite recently have handled all matters of social policy: education, health care, housing, etc. They continue to have the primary responsibility in those areas. Maybe nationalizing those is a mistake.
My point: we should be reducing the areas of responsibility of the federal government rather than increasing them.