More Members for Congress?

The Washington Post is discussing if the Congress should have more members. The Last time the membership number of the House changed was 1911. Since we have obviously grown a lot since then should the membership increase? If it does keep increasing when would it become unmanageable?

The Post from Capital Briefing from the Washington Post:

With members of Congress so very popular right now in the eyes of the
American people -- the latest
Gallup poll puts congressional approval at a solid 18 percent -- perhaps the
time is right to give the public more of what it loves.
Whether the voters
actually want it or not, the argument for a bigger House of Representatives is
the basis for a new
article by the California-based research center Miller-McCune. Surveying the latest
scholarly work, the piece makes the case that House districts now cover so many
people that members may not represent their constituents as well as they could,
or should.
When the current size of 435 members was established in 1911, each
House district covered roughly 200,000 people. Now the average district size is
more like 640,000, and the number will keep going up as long as the U.S.
population grows without the House growing along with it. Other western
democracies like Britain and Germany have larger lower houses of parliament than
we do, even though they have far fewer citizens.
So how big should the House
be? One study cited in the
Miller-McCune piece suggests the chamber could grow by about 50 percent, to 650
members. That would knock each district down to a more manageable 430,000 or so
constituents (still more than double the size the districts were the last time
the House expanded).
Now, a bigger House might mean lawmakers would be more
responsive to helping constituents get their Social Security checks. But would
it do a better job on lowering gas prices, dealing with illegal immigration or
any of the other tasks that the public currently thinks Congress does terribly?
And do angry voters really want a lot more lawmakers making $170,000 per year,
airing annoying campaign ads, and finding new ways to become enmeshed in
scandals?
Probably not.
Nor does there appear to be a huge appetite on
the Hill for such a move. In the 109th Congress, Rep. Alcee
Hastings (D-Fla.) introduced a bill "to establish a commission to make
recommendations on the appropriate size of membership of the House." The measure
picked up just one cosponsor and never even got a committee hearing.
On a
selfish level, Capitol Briefing would absolutely LOVE to cover the expansion of
the House. As things stand, congressional districts are re-drawn by each state
at least once every 10 years following the census, giving governors, state
legislators and other political operatives the opportunity to jockey for
advantage. Can you imagine the chaos if all of the sudden there were 200-plus
new seats to play with?
Unfortunately, Capitol Briefing does not have a vote
in the House to help make this happen. Perhaps the 650-member "House of the
Future" could include slots for a few bloggers.

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