BrianGarst.com

Just imagine how many sex scandals could be going at the same time with 2 or 3 times as many Congress-critters:

Here’s the deal: On Thursday, a group called Apportionment.us filed suit in federal district court for the Northern District of Mississippi on behalf of five people, one resident from each of the following states: Montana, Delaware, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Utah. The quintet’s complaint: that their votes carry far less weight in the House of Representatives than do those from residents of other sates, like Rhode Island and Iowa.

The group alleges this is the case because the population variance between the most under-represented congressional district in the nation and most over-represented district exceeds 80%. For example, according to the complaint, Montana has one representative for every approximately 905,000 people while its neighbor to the south, Wyoming, has one representative for approximately every 495,000 people. (The suit deals only with the House, not the Senate where, of course, residents of Montana have far more representation, per capita, than do residents of nearly every other state.)

The group is now trumpeting the fact that a three judge panel was immediately ordered to consider the case.

I don’t know much about the legal merits of this argument. I’m skeptical that this is an issue that the courts ought to be addressing. The size of the House of Representatives is set by statute, not the Constitution.

As for the idea itself, the thought of expanding the House of Representatives is not new. It is worthy of consideration, though, as there is no denying that a growing population and a stagnant House has vastly increased the number of citizens represented by each member. This has arguably affected just how much the House is truly “the people’s House.”

If the House of Reprehensibles were to be expanded, either by passing new law or from a court order, there will be a difficult transition period.  The Capital would not be big enough for the new body.  Nor would there be sufficient office space in the surrounding area.  And I can only imagine how ugly the political battles over crafting the new districts would get.

Update: On a related note, an analysis from liberal leaning FiveThirtyEight thinks an expansion of the House would favor Democrats, because (in the current political make-up) they win more larger states and Republicans win more smaller states.  The logic looks sound to me.