The founders always intended for the House of Representatives to grow with the country

The House of Representatives is stuck. For over 100 years, it’s been frozen at 435 members. 

Yet the number 435 never appears in the Constitution. Indeed, the founders always intended the House to grow along with the country. Many political scientists agree: As the population increases, so too should the size of the legislature. While the rate of growth may naturally slow over time, an expanding population necessitates expanded representation. Without it, the legislative body risks losing its connection to those it represents. For our  system of checks and balances to function properly, the legislature must also increase its capacity in an increasingly complex world to prevent its core role from being ceded to the other branches of government.

Augmenting the size of the House was a fundamental reason for holding a census every ten years, so that the number of people per representative would not become too great. George Washington proposed a ratio of one member for every 30,000 people, while a proposed amendment by James Madison would have allowed that ratio to eventually grow to one per 50,000. Today’s number is one for every 760,000.

The House of Representatives was designed to foster a close connection between constituents and their elected officials, with relatively low barriers to entry for those seeking office. However, these foundational principles of closer and deeper representation have eroded over time. In 1929, Congress imposed an arbitrary cap on the size of the House, keeping the size that was based on the 1910 census. Since then, the U.S. population has more than tripled, leaving each Representative to serve an average of over 760,000 people — a ratio that ranks among the worst in modern democracies. This imbalance undermines the House’s ability to effectively represent and respond to the needs of its constituents.

This imbalance fuels a sense that Congress is disconnected from the country it serves: Today, the majority of people don’t believe Congress cares about the people they represent. At the same time, research shows that representatives in smaller districts have more contact with their constituents, and in turn their constituents are more likely to reach out to them and feel like their representative is in touch with them.

Potential benefits of
expanding the House

Frequently Asked Questions

How big should the House be?

As recognized by James Madison in Federalist #55, there is no “precise solution” to the question of how big an assembly ought to be. For that reason, Madison and the other framers did not establish a precise size for the House of Representatives in the Constitution, but instead expected that Congress would augment the size of the House after each decennial census.

Madison did propose an amendment to the Constitution in 1789 that would have established a minimum size for the House. That amendment would have established a minimum size based on an initial ratio of one member for every 30,000, but that as the nation’s population grew, the number of people per representative would increase, to a maximum of one member for every 50,000 people. Under that formula, the House would have 6,500 representatives today (or possibly 1,625 representatives, depending on how it is interpreted). This amendment was never ratified by the required number of states, but its text provides an important insight into how the framers understood the importance of a House that grew as the nation’s population grew.

Article I. After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.

James Madison’s proposed constitutional amendment in 1789

Instead of following a formula like the one Madison proposed, Congress made an ad hoc judgment about the appropriate ratio of persons to representatives after each decennial census. In practice, this meant that after each census, the House was expanded enough to ensure that no state would lose any seats. The 1920 census was the first in which the majority of the U.S. population lived in urban areas, rather than rural ones. Fear that continuing to increase the size of the House might increase the political power of urbanizing states therefore led to a political deadlock, followed by the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, which froze the size of the House at the size it was at the time: 435 voting representatives.

There may be no objective right answer to how big an assembly should be, but political science has identified a pattern, suggesting a size that is the most efficient for a national legislature to effectively manage its legislative and governance work. That pattern finds that a country’s lower house—such as the House of Representatives—should have a number of members close to the cube root of the country’s represented population. In other words, if the number of members is multiplied by itself twice, it should be at least equal to the total population, so that a country with a population of 1,000 should have a 10-member lower house, while a population of 1,000,000 should have 100 members, and so on. This ratio should balance the effectiveness of communication between constituents and members and between members themselves. Under the 2020 census, that would mean the House should have about 692 representatives.

When the American Academy of Arts and Sciences studied the issue, they recommended a simpler approach: Add 150 members, for 585 total. This number is derived by following the practice Congress had prior to 1920 of increasing the House size just enough to ensure no state lost any seats. They also suggest further increases after each census, including possibly pegging future increases to the cube root of the nation’s population.

What would an expanded House look like? Where will they all sit?

The Capitol Campus of today—the Capitol building itself and its surrounding office buildings and other infrastructure— is already chaotic and overcrowded. As a result, a common objection to expanding the House is logistical: : Where would they all sit?

To answer this question, Protect Democracy partnered with POPVOX Foundation to thoroughly assess the capacity of the Capitol Campus today and how it could be grown and modernized in order to accommodate at least 150 new members (in accordance with the recommendation of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences). The result was the report and website, Where Will They All Sit?, which identified seven key changes to modernize and expand the House of Representatives. We then enlisted the help of design firm Firsthand and architect Alexandre Khoury to render concrete and realistic solutions.

How might this relate to other democratic reform efforts? 

Expanding the House could complement another key democratic reform: proportional representation, which relies on multi-member districts (at least three representatives per district). Currently, six states elect only one representative, and seven more elect just two. Because the Constitution requires representatives to be elected within states, multi-member districts cannot cross state lines, preventing some states from adopting this system. Expanding the House would reduce the number of states unable to implement multi-member districts.

Additionally, expanding the House may also make the electoral college system less biased. The electoral college was designed (in part) to exaggerate the influence of small states, by ensuring that every state got two extra votes in addition to its congressional apportionment. However, an artificially small House of Representatives exaggerates that exaggeration, making the system not only biased but fundamentally unfair. Adding representatives to the House would reduce the discrepancy in population per elector among the states, reducing the likelihood of a popular vote loser winning the presidency due to the electoral college.

How will this affect Congressional capacity? 

Congress not only serves a growing population, it also oversees the executive branch and administrative state.  When Congress remains stagnant, its power weakens relative to other branches, reducing its capacity to keep up. Effective oversight requires resources and scale, yet Congress is increasingly outmatched by a far larger and better-funded federal bureaucracy.

This was exacerbated in the 1980’s and 90’s when Congress suddenly began shedding staff, reducing its own capacity even as legislation grew more complex. Today, the federal government — including contractors and grantees — employs about 9 million people. But Congress, which is supposed to oversee and govern all of it, is a tiny fraction. The legislative branch in total — including things like the Library of Congress and Congressional Budget Office — employs just around 31,000 people. Less than a third of a percent.

This problem is also going to get worse. After the Supreme Court struck down Chevron deference — the doctrine that deferred to reasonable agency interpretations of statutes — Congress can no longer delegate its capacity issues to the administrative state going forward.

Increasing the body’s membership would both increase its ability to work on behalf of constituents and also help the body retake some of its imperatives from the executive branch.