We Need More Representatives in the House of Representatives

I firmly believe that we can begin to fix our problem in Congress by increasing the size of the House of Representatives. A larger House of Representatives will create a legislative body that more closely resembles the personalities and values of the American people. Additionally, more Representatives will address the problems with campaign finance issues and reduce the need for Congressmen to spend inordinate amounts of time fundraising to keep their Congressional seats. A larger House of Representatives would also create a larger Electoral College which will reduce or eliminate the variances between the popular vote and the Electoral College in Presidential elections. The only way to fix Congress is to allow more people into the process. A larger House of Representatives puts more people into the process. For these reasons, you should vote Pro on this resolution in all categories. More Reps would more closely resemble the makeup of the American people. The House of Representatives was designed to represent populations. In fact, our bicameral legislation came about via the Great Compromise that created two separate houses of legislature [1]. The House of Representatives was designed to represent the population directly and the size of the House set its size after each census until the size of the House was permanently set at 435 via the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929[2]. A larger House of Representatives would more closely resemble the makeup of the American people. Average Americans have become fed up with those who are sent to Congress. According to a recent poll by Fox News: Dissatisfaction with Congress is so high that by a two-to-one margin voters think an “everyday American” could do a better job handling the country’s problems than most members of Congress (63-31 percent). [3] A Pro vote signals that you believe that government legislation should be written and voted upon by a representative group of Americans and that this only can be achieved if we increase the size of the House to match the country's growing population. More Reps would fix campaign finance issues. Congressional campaigns cost significant sums of money. According to recent data: All candidates for the U. S. House and Senate raised about $1.2 billion in the first year-and-a-half of the election cycle, compared with just a shade under that at the same time in 2010 and nearly $945 million in 2008. The average Senate incumbent has an advantage of about 11:1 over the average challenger. House incumbents hold a 7:1 advantage over their challengers, on average. [4] Those who are in Congress must spend inordinate amounts of time fundraising for their reelection campaigns instead of reading legislation or serving their constituencies. Not only does this take the sitting member of Congress away from working for their constituents, but it discourages qualified challengers from mounting a re-election campaign for inability to raise large sums of money. We end up having many members of Congress running for reelection with no challengers whatsoever. When the American people do not have a choice in Congressional elections because no challenger would (or could) run, our democracy fails. Smaller Congressional Districts would not require as much campaign money because each Representative would campaign to smaller constituencies. Smaller constituencies would also be able to hold their Congressmen accountable by either advocating for a replacement, or mounting an election campaign of their own. Outside money, commonly coming in the forms of PAC contributions, would be less likely to target individual Congressional races when more Representatives exist. More representatives in Congress will move representation away from outside funding interests and towards the constituency who votes. A Pro vote supports this notion. More Reps would minimize, or eliminate, the issues occurring between the popular vote & the Electoral College. Finally, we must discuss how the size of the House of Representatives affects the size of the Electoral College used to elect the President of the United States. The size of the Electoral College is determined by the number of members of the House & Senate, with a Congressional Amendment giving 3 Electoral votes to DC. [5] More Reps would give all states more electors in the Electoral College; therefore, a larger Electoral College would more closely resemble the popular vote. If states choose to allocate their electors on a proportional or Congressional district basis, then Presidential elections will then have to develop campaign strategies for not only all states but all populations within states. Adding seats to the House of Representatives will not only reform the House elections, but also reform the Presidential elections. This is precisely why a Pro vote to add more seats to the House of Representatives is what we citizens must demand in order improve our Federal government. In conclusion, Americans have become increasingly frustrated with the inability of Congress to get anything done. Americans have stated that average Americans can do a better job of running the country than the people we elect to Congress. Why can’t average Americans run for Congress? Simply put, an average American is not able to raise millions of dollars to mount a campaign to unseat an incumbent Congressman. In addition, Americans (as well as many on the Debate. org website) have decried a failure in the reliability of the Electoral College as it has often produced different results from the popular vote. Just like a doctor must treat the cause of the problem and not the symptoms, we must also find out what causes an inability for average people to become Congressmen and why the Electoral College can produce significantly different results from the popular vote. The cause of both of these symptoms is a House of Representatives that has not appropriately expanded with the growing population of the US. An increase in the House of Representatives is long overdue, and we need to increase the size of the House right away. References: [1] . http://www.senate.gov... [2] . http://history.house.gov... [3] . http://www.foxnews.com... [4] . http://www.opensecrets.org... [5] . http://www.pbs.org...