Daly: Uncapping the House

A measure for bringing the legislative branch closer to the people.

As you may have noticed, I write a lot of about my frustrations with today’s elected leaders. To put it charitably, we, the voters, haven’t been sending our best for quite some time.

A lot of the problem can be attributed to the weakness of today’s parties. Political parties are supposed to be vehicles by which citizens freely come together to define their societal ambitions, and advance their beliefs and interests. But these days, that’s largely not how party-voters, partisan-media outlets, and politicians themselves treat them. The parties have instead become an avenue for channeling grievance, and elevating style and emotional appeal over substance. Ideas and basic competency are barely an afterthought anymore… at least at the federal level. It’s a big reason why we have so many performative firebrands, and too few problem-solvers, “representing” us.

Because of this mess, I’ve come to think that ranked-choice primaries are a pretty good idea. Are they perfect? No. But I think they can disincentivize and even curtail some damaging political trends that have led to years of bad governance, executive subservience, and very poor public-representation.

In that same interest, I’d like to see far more voters participate in political primaries, to take a more active role in shaping the parties. After all, in heavily red or blue areas, primaries are where a lot of general-election races are won.

I’m also interested in procedural or institutional changes that better serve constituents, many of whom are struggling to be heard. A lot of voters can’t even get an audience with their local representatives, but can easily turn on cable-news, or pull up YouTube, to catch them making clowns of themselves on the national stage.

Last week for the Reagan Caucus podcast, I co-interviewed a fellow named Jeff Mayhugh. The episode probably won’t air for a week or two, but it’s worth talking about now. Mayhugh is passionate about an issue I’d heard about before, but frankly hadn’t paid much attention to: uncapping the House of Representatives.

Mayhugh is the vice president of the No Cap Fund, an organization dedicated to making it happen.

What does “uncapping the House” mean, exactly? I’m glad you asked.

As most of you know, there are 100 U.S. senators (two for each state). There are many more members of the House of Representatives: 435, to be exact. That number is related to population, with the more populous states having more House seats. But it’s not as close of a relationship as what our Founding Fathers had in mind. If it were, that number would be a heck of a lot larger than 435 — where it’s remained for over a hundred years, despite big, consequential changes to the country.

There’s a good explanation of what happened on the No Cap Fund’s website:

The Constitution instructs Congress to reapportion the members of the House every ten years after the census. So, why has it been 435 for so long?

The history goes like this…

Between 1920 and 1929, while Americans adjusted to a rapidly expanding economy and population, returning from war, and were taxed to pay for the debt, Congress failed to apportion the House due to political disputes over urban vs. rural representation. And then quietly capped the people’s power, passing the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 and limiting representation in the House to 435 seats. While the number was adequate for 1929, the population has tripled to nearly 330 million. In 1929, each House member represented 220,000 people; today, that number is about 750,000. As the population grew while representation remained capped, the people’s power was diluted.

By design, the House is the legislative body closest to the people. But being one constituent among three-quarters of a million doesn’t feel all that “close,” does it? Readers sometimes ask me what they can personally do to make their voice heard on matters of public policy. I’ve long suggested that they contact their member of Congress, but when you look at that enormous number, and consider the stories we’ve all heard about congressional unresponsiveness, it’s easy to understand why people view the exercise as pointless. The current makeup may be advantageous to lobbyists and high-end donors, but not so much to the average Joe who’s far more representative of the constituency.

“With fewer representatives,” the No Cap Fund argues, “elections become more expensive, lobbyists gain more influence, and the average citizen’s voice gets drowned out. Thus, the House becomes a place for a wealthy and exclusive political class instead of a place for the people.”

Personally, after looking into this a bit, and listening to Mayhugh, I’m sold on the idea of uncapping the House. In fact, I think this might be a rare issue that conservatives, populists, libertarians, and liberals could all agree on (if they knew more about it). I mean, wouldn’t pretty much anyone prefer better attentiveness from, and accessibility to, their elected representatives?

I think such a change would also encourage more independent-minded people (who aren’t always lockstep with party themes, narratives, and loyalties) to run for office, and have a better shot of winning. That would strengthen the power of Congress, and keep the executive branch in better check (which is something we desperately need).

As Mayhugh said during our conversation, the introduction of new seats would probably have to be done incrementally. Tripling the number overnight, to pull back in line with the 1920s’ population-ratio, just wouldn’t be logistically feasible. But ultimately, I think it (or at least a number in the ballpark) should be the ultimate goal.

Of course, the biggest hurdle to clear in all of this would be getting Congress, in its current form, to sign off on it. And with there being virtually no public demand for uncapping the House (due largely to unawareness of the issue), and probably little interest from individual legislators in having less influence and control, it’s hard to imagine the effort going anywhere.

Then again, every movement starts somewhere. And sometimes they begin with just learning something new.