go here<\/a>.)<\/p>\nPut bluntly, the southern end of the 20th district has absolutely zero connection to the northern end.\u00a0 The idea of having one politician represent the entire expanse is ludicrous.<\/p>\n
Similar problems exist across the United States.\u00a0 In Alaska, where I grew up, Rep. Don Young is expected to represent a sprawling and diverse (but sparsely populated) territory the size of a small continent.<\/p>\n
This runs contrary to the express wishes of the Founding Fathers, who intended the House of Representatives to be our most, well, representative branch of government.<\/p>\n
Congressmen (and, later, congresswomen) were supposed to know their communities and their constituents intimately.\u00a0 They were meant to be people you saw around town, in church, and at the market.<\/p>\n
For that reason, when the Framers wrote the Constitution, they limited the number of House members to one for ever 30,000 members of the public.<\/p>\n
Think about that:\u00a0 Under the original language laid out by the Founding Fathers, Franklin County would have one full Congressional district (and part of another) devoted to its needs.<\/p>\n
Granted, if we had stuck with that ratio of politicians-to-constituents, we would currently have a House of Representatives with more than 10,000 voting members.<\/p>\n
We can all agree, that’s way more<\/em> politicians than we need!<\/p>\nBut it’s also clear that our current system, which allows for a maximum of 435 sitting House members, is increasingly unworkable and even anti-democratic.<\/p>\n
Beginning in 2012, each Representative will represent roughly 714,000 people.\u00a0 That is wildly out of sync with the original design and purpose of the House.<\/p>\n
So how did we end up with that arbitrary 435-member limit?<\/p>\n
It turns out, the rule is based upon a simple law (called Public Law 62-5) that was passed by Congress in 1911.\u00a0 At that time, each House member represented only around 200,000 citizens.<\/p>\n
So what if we returned to that ratio which existed a century ago?\u00a0 Even the most rural Congressional districts would be about the size of Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties combined.<\/p>\n
We would have a House of Representatives with roughly 1,500 members — hefty, but still workable.<\/p>\n
Arguably, it would be a more chaotic institution, with more parties and factions.\u00a0 Many House members would represent regional, ethnic, or parochial interests.\u00a0 These would likely form coalitions.<\/p>\n
Rather than two big-tent parties, we would probably see a more complicated scrum of “tea parties,” “moveon.orgers,” “Palinites,” “Greens,” and so on.\u00a0 That would all get messy at times, to be sure.<\/p>\n
But individual Representatives would also be far more rooted in their communities.\u00a0 Gerrymandering would be less of a problem.<\/p>\n
Campaigns would be less expensive, more grassroots affairs, reducing the role of money in our elections.<\/p>\n
The role of TV and radio advertisements would be downplayed, while public debates and human canvassing would move back to the center of our politics.<\/p>\n
Yes, at first, a three-fold increase in the number of Congress-members would seem disorienting.\u00a0 (Where would they all sit?)\u00a0 But we’ve seen the body grow dramatically before.<\/p>\n
Our current House has eight times<\/em> more members than sat for the very first Congress in New York City’s Federal Hall in 1789.<\/p>\nAnd the simple truth is that as the nation’s population grows, we will have to grow the House as well.\u00a0 Otherwise, “our” politicians will soon wind up representing a million citizens, and more.<\/p>\n
Their districts will continue to swell until it will be logistically and practically impossible for them to develop more than a superficial knowledge of the various regions and interests.<\/p>\n
That can hardly be what the framers of the Constitution had in mind.<\/p>\n
As always, your thoughts welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week, NCPR will air a series of reports on the redistricting process that will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3216,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215\/revisions\/3216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}