What would be the effect if the Constitution were changed to increase the number of congressman?

Imagine if their were 5350 Congressman instead of 535 or some other multiple. What effect would it have on politics, political power, political donations, etc? Would there be super congressman resulting from bottle necks of power? Would it be good or bad? Yes, I know we have very rarely changed the constitution and this is just a thought exercise.

One order of magnitude worse than the completely emascualted bunch we have now. Yes, you too, Nancy...;-)

Quote: 1nickelmiracle

Imagine if their were 5350 Congressman instead of 535 or some other multiple. What effect would it have on politics, political power, political donations, etc? Would there be super congressman resulting from bottle necks of power? Would it be good or bad? Yes, I know we have very rarely changed the constitution and this is just a thought exercise.

Wyoming population is 57,6412 in 2012 (smallest state in the Union)
USA population is 313,914,040 in 2012

That is a ratio of 313,914,040 /57,6412=544.6

I have heard the proposal that this ratio should be used to determine the number of congressmen. Instead of congressmen being 435+100=535 there should be 545+100=645. That would add 110 new congressional seats. The ratio would be recalculated every 10 years with the new census.

The constitution only specifically said that a congressmen must represent at least 30,000 people. The number of congressional districts was fixed at 435 by congressional law roughly a century ago, and to change it only requires a new law, and not a congressional district. The average representation is 720K people per congressman today.

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I have a much more modest proposal. Limit a state's votes in electoral college to 1 per congressional district. I don't think it is fair that citizens of Wyoming should get 3 votes for the President per person. THe individual states would retain their present right to award votes as winner take all or by district.

Representatives and their districts:

Senator from Nevada lived in Santa Monica, CA and had any Nevada resident available for a ten cent call. Tried to make Santa Monica the railroad and industrial hub but US Army quietly insisted on San Pedro/Long Beach, so Santa Monica became ultra chic upscale area all due to actions of the Senator from NEVADA, not California.

City Clerk in Manhattan Beach, CA lived in Hawaii for nine years and was simply re-elected when the whole slate was re-elected.

Bell, CA has entire city government under indictment for looting the city treasury for decades with ultra high salaries that citizens never once objected to.

So how are these citizens going to better served by having more Congressmen who will want more bribes? I can understand packing the Supreme Court with its nine old men, but the US Congress? I think someone told the Congress to "Go Get Stuffed" and you took them literally.

There is talk of this every now and then and it never goes anywhere. First, it dilutes the power of congressmen already in power. Second, the balance of power thing has been going on since the beginning. In the antebellum era states were admitted in pairs to balance power. Nevada had the rules for admission waived. On and on. For better or worse it is one of many locked numbers and laws in the USA.

It is sometimes favored by people who just hate that the US Senate balances power to smaller states.

Quote: AZDuffman

It is sometimes favored by people who just hate that the US Senate balances power to smaller states.

There are three things on the table:
1) Greatly increase the number of congressmen by some multiple of the present amount
2) Limited Increase in the number of congressman so that the size of average congressional district is equal to the population of the smallest state (currently that would add about 110 congressmen
3) Eliminate the two extra electoral college votes that you get by just being a state

The OP post proposed #1, and I mentioned #2 and #3 . I assume you are talking about #3.

Many people propose changes to the electoral college system, from eliminating it entirely and having a nationwide popular vote, to voting in your district. In my opinion the 3rd option above is the simplest change to move to a more balanced electoral system.

Thanks for the replies. For the most part, an update is needed to be fair, but there is no will of the people to even think about this yet. OH-6, my district and probably Mission's, runs from where I live at the northern edge, to a city 306 miles(by car) away, Ironton, Ohio. This sounds crazy to me even though it's gerrymandering. This is such a big difference, probably most of those people have southern accents most likely, no joke. An increase would at least allow them to hopefully be more connected to whom they represent and be hopefully statistically more representative of the people.

I would not like the idea of a popular vote or eliminating the electoral college because the constitution is supposed to protect minority voices and homogenization would not allow us to have our separate identities. We live in the US as Americans, but we also live in our local communities and all have different challenges. Keeping the electoral college always ensures they are at least considered for some. It's all about balance. Since you're most likely not from a battleground state, consider yourself lucky not to be bombarded everywhere with all the ads in all media and internet.