Solutions for the House of unRepresentatives

If we can manage business and enter combat using secure digital communications, why can’t Congress do the same?

Our US Constitution called for representative government. A Senate for representing States regardless of size and a House for representing people according to population. (Well, except that some people had no representation at the time because they lacked a chosen gender or the accepted shade of skin.)

“The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand.”

Today, each representative has about 700,000 constituents. How is it possible for one person to understand needs of that many people? It ain’t.

We could return to a House of representatives for the people by saying that the size of the House is proportional to the size of our population, and limiting the number of people represented by one member to … say for instance 100,000. What difference would that make?

First of all, there would be nowhere near enough room for all of them in D.C. And they don’t need to be there. Imagine that your rep is within a few miles of your home for every month of the year except January. The rest of the year Congress could meet by video (like most of us already use our cell phones). This would leave it nearly impossible for such members to ignore the needs of local community in favor of kissing up to more senior legislators who do not have your community’s interests in mind.

Second, the cost of lobbying members of the House would increase tremendously, possibly to an unworkable level. So special interest groups would do better to advertise for public opinion changes. Instead of one elected official, they would have to convince you and your neighbors of their need for support!

Other benefits are obvious to anyone imagining this possibility.

The biggest disadvantage would be paying salaries for seven times as many legislators. Are we willing to pay for a truly representative House of Representatives?