Do We Need a Bigger Congress?

If anyone thinks they have adequate representation in Congress, they are either clueless or rich.

Maybe both, because the only “people” represented in Congress are corporations, special interest groups, and political action committees.

In other words, not you.

In fact, the representative ratio in Congress is somewhere around 750,000:1.

When the Constitution was written in 1787, George Washington insisted that for good “republican” government, we needed a representative ratio of 30,000:1.

This has been a problem for a long time, but because most Americans are functionally illiterate and lack basic knowledge of American government, we think “the people” are still in charge.

Progressives are starting to take notice.

This is good and bad.

You see, they think every issue needs to be settled at the “national” level and therefore want to add more members to the House of Representatives.

Democracy.

But the real solution isn’t expanding the House or reforming Congress.

It’s federalism and the original Constitution.

If Congress only handled issues of a “general” concern, like commerce and defense, we could live with a 435 member House.

They would be virtually irrelevant.

And the people of the States would have greater control over the issues that matter most. Every State, even California, has a better representative ratio than the United States Congress.

But this issue always makes for great Podcast fodder, so I discuss it on Episode 808 of The Brion McClanahan Show.