Slow Boring

Share this post

Should we expand the House?

www.slowboring.com

Should we expand the House?

A solution in search of a problem

Matthew Yglesias
Apr 16, 2021
70
161
Share this post

Should we expand the House?

www.slowboring.com

When the first U.S. House of Representatives met in 1789 it had 65 members. The size of the House then expanded steadily over time as the population grew and new states were admitted, up until the Apportionment Act of 1911. That law set the size of the House at 433 members but also made a provision to add two new seats upon the admission of New Mexico and Arizona to the union.

Then came the controversial 1920 Census, after which Congress refused to reapportion the House at all in a huge breach of constitutional norms.1

But a new Reapportionment Act did happen in 1929, and after that, we went back to the routine of changing up House apportionment after each Census to account for shifts in the population. But we didn’t go back to the old habit of changing the overall number of seats, which instead stayed fixed at 435. Even the admission of Alaska and Hawaii didn’t lead to the creation of new seats for new states the way it had for New Mexico and Arizona.

People sometimes talk about this a…

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Slow Boring to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2023 Matthew Yglesias
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing