The People's Perspective on the Size of the People's House

T he quality of representation the citizenry receives from its political leaders is central to evaluating the character of any democratic institution. Moreover, the number of elected members that comprise an institution can be vital in determining whether citizens have access to and can influence the decisions of their representatives ~Dahl and Tufte 1973!. The United States House of Representatives has been frozen at 435 members for almost a century. This durability of this alignment is astonishing; in its first century of existence, the U.S. House experienced a virtually uninterrupted string of decennial increases in its membership. Despite the magnitude of the effects of this stasis on representation, political scientists have not extensively examined this subject ~Squire and Hamm 2005!.1 While the House has remained constant in size for nearly 100 years, the nation’s population has grown by more than 200% over this duration. Members of the House on average represent more than 600,000 citizens; a figure that increases with population growth as long as the size of the body remains constant. This development has sparked a debate among some observers about whether it is time to increase the size of the House of Representatives. On one side of the debate are the proponents of an enlargement in the membership of the House as a means to improve the quality of representation citizens receive ~Glassman 1990; Jacoby 2005; Kromkowski and Kromkowski 1991, 1992; Lijphart 2000; Lucas and McDonald 2000; Yates 1992!. Primarily, these advocates claim that failure to adjust the size of the House consistent with U.S. population growth has created congressional districts that are too heavily populated for House members to adequately represent their constituents in the areas of policy and service responsiveness. They also contend that boosting the membership of the House would provide additional opportunities to elect women and minorities to the body. Furthermore, they suggest that taking this step would prevent states growing at a rate less than the national average from losing seats in subsequent rounds of reapportionment. Shifting migration patterns have cost many states in the Northeast and Midwest representation in the House over the course of the last half century. While one essay lists a total of 25 reasons to increase the size of the U.S. House ~Kromkowski and Kromkowski 1991!, the preceding justifications are emphasized as particularly important by advocates of this cause. On any question of institutional design there is an imperative to balance the need to provide representation against operational efficiency ~Buchanan and Tullock 1962; Polsby 1968; Shepsle 1988; Willoughby 1934!. Any legislative body must be responsive to multiple interests in society, but it must also operate in an efficient manner so it can carry out its policy making responsibilities. Opponents argue that while enlarging the House might have benefits for representation, doing so would disrupt legislative operations in the chamber. This more unwieldy legislative environment would undermine communication and deliberation among members and make building coalitions in the House a more onerous task ~Evans and Oleszek 2000; Overby 1992!. Detractors also cite other concerns, including increased costs and lack of existing infrastructure needed to accommodate an addition of members and staff. There has been recent legislative action to adjust the size of the House in the 110th Congress. On April 19, 2007, members of the House approved a twoseat increase in the size of the institution to provide a voting member for the residents of the District of Columbia. This proposal marked the first time since Alaska and Hawaii entered the Union that Congress has seriously debated an upward adjustment in the size of the nation’s lower legislative body. However, on September 18, 2007, the bill died at the hands of a Senate filibuster ~Sheridan 2007!. Despite the potential consequences for representation when a national legislative body remains constant in size during a period of extended population expansion, there has been little consideration of public opinion on this issue. Do U.S. citizens approve of the current size of the House, even if it means a diminished capacity for representation? Public attitudes toward numerous aspects of American political institutions are limited in scope, although some issues, such as term limits for members of Congress, have been polled extensively. Institutional size is a domain that has received scant attention from survey researchers. Moreover, there has been a complete absence of survey data probing attitudes about the size of the U.S. House and the average number of constituents per congressional district. This article fills this void by presenting the responses to questions on these topics from a national survey administered by Knowledge Networks of 1,020 Americans.