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dsc

(52,162 posts)
13. With the exception of India
Mon Sep 21, 2020, 11:31 AM
Sep 2020

we have far and away the largest number of constituents per representative in any representative democracy. To take some examples. The UK has 650 seats with about 67 million people. That is just a bit over 100,000 per seat. Germany has a minimum of 598 seats, current 709 for a population of 83 million. That is between 133,000 per seat and 120,000 per seat. Italy 630 members for a population of 60 million which is less than 100k per seat. In contrast we have 435 members for a population of 328 million which is around 700k people per seat. While the help with the EC college matters there are a bunch of great reasons to expand the House in order to have a more representative house.

This is an interesting idea - I read about a similar topic a few months ago in the Atlantic FM123 Sep 2020 #1
Wyoming Rule would be a start and provide a justifiable rationale to regularly expand Statistical Sep 2020 #2
That sounds incredibly reasonable! bluewater Sep 2020 #4
Someone else pointed out a simple way AleksS Sep 2020 #3
Districts should have no more than 250,000 people. roamer65 Sep 2020 #5
That still doesn't address the problem in the senate, which we are experiencing right now BComplex Sep 2020 #6
True. But expanding the House would not take a Constitutional amendment. bluewater Sep 2020 #7
add DC and Puerto Rico as States, and split California in 2, that will add 6 new Democratic Senators Celerity Sep 2020 #14
we were discussing this last night, too. maxsolomon Sep 2020 #16
+1000 Celerity Sep 2020 #18
How about this? greymattermom Sep 2020 #8
See post #2. nt Wednesdays Sep 2020 #9
Yes yes yes!! moose65 Sep 2020 #10
Surprisingly, that wouldn't help as much as one would think. Captain Stern Sep 2020 #11
Getting rid of the electoral college looks like the only way to deal with this. BComplex Sep 2020 #21
I have been saying this since I joined DU. Take it to 1,501 or so. If the US House had the same Celerity Sep 2020 #12
With the exception of India dsc Sep 2020 #13
+1000 bluewater Sep 2020 #15
We have around one MP per every 29,000 people here in Sweden. (349 in the Riksdag, 10.1m population) Celerity Sep 2020 #19
To be fair Sweden is pretty small dsc Sep 2020 #20
It would not help significantly. califootman Sep 2020 #17
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