The size of Congressional districts

[maarten]

Did you know that the Bill of Rights originally had 12 amendments in it? Two were not passed initially; one of them was ratified 200 years later and became the 27th Amendment; the other, Article the First as it originally was the first one proposed, is technically still pending. It stipulates the size of Congressional districts, to start at 30,000

Comments

[bugboy3001]

6000 representatives sounds perfectly fine to me. Really! They'd be more accountable and accessible to their constituents, and I agree with the FAQ that their productivity could hardly decrease any further.

Also, mathematically speaking, trying to apportion the 435 congressional seats to the various states is 'difficult' -- in the sense that no method of apportionment can exist that is 'sensible'. It's not really a very big problem, but it's an interesting result... wikipedia has the details...

[maarten]

I'm not sure the malapportionment problem is grave enough to warrant the change.

Instead of creating micro-districts, I'd sooner be in favor of creating multi-seat districts which can give better representation to minorities. This idea is argued in Bullwinkles and Bushmanders, a book about redistricting/gerrymandering which I've posted about before.

[dreamerfi]

with 6000, gerrymandering will, ehm, be really dreadful.

But why base it on land area? Lots of people these days don't even know their neighbors anymore, so why not try something different? Say, based on state and age. Stratify the people in a state in ten age groups, and let each age group get a representative. Of course, this is only a suggestion - you might as well get facebook groups or something like that.

Oh, and imagine 6000 reps each trying to get some pork for their group... this might be the end of port altogether...