9380 members of the House of Representatives!

[Sara S]

from delancyplace.com:

In today's excerpt - if we were strictly following both the letter of the U.S. Constitution
and the intentions of those who wrote it, we would now have 9,380 members of the
House of Representatives. That is because the Constitution speaks of one representative
for every thirty thousand citizens to insure a direct and personal connection between
congressmen and their constituents - in order to achieve truly democratic involvement.
This point was so important to George Washington that he required a change from
forty thousand down to thirty thousand on the last day of the Constitutional Convention:
"The minimal size of a House district was reduced from 40,000 to 30,000 on the very
last day of the Convention, and only then with an unprecedented direct endorsement
from George Washington, speaking from the chair, who rightly foresaw that many Americans
would be disturbed by the large number of constituents each member of the House
would represent. No constitutional requirement limits the size of the House to 435
representatives (as set in 1911), which makes it a smaller body than the British
House of Commons. (Rakove) ...
"Based on the count in 2ooo of America's population, 9,380 is the number of representatives
Congress would be permitted to create. The apportionment following the 2ooo census
left each House member representing an average of 646,952 people. The current size
of the House, 435 seats, dates to a 1911 law that authorized 433 representatives,
with room for two more when Arizona and New Mexico were admitted as states. The
House eventually swelled to 437 seats with the additions of Alaska and Hawaii but
was adjusted back to 435. ...
"The first House of Representatives was to include as many as sixty-five members.
Madison urged that the number be doubled, as it 'was too small a number to represent
the whole inhabitants of the United States; They would not possess enough of the
confidence of the people, and would be too sparsely taken from the people, to bring
with them all the local information which would be frequently wanted.' Others called
for fewer members, with Roger Sherman of Connecticut urging fifty on the grounds
that 'the great distance they will have
to travel will render their attendance precarious and will make it difficult to
prevail on a sufficient number of fit men to undertake the service.' After the first
apportionment, which followed the 1790 census, the House was expanded to 105 seats,
with each seat representing about 33,000 inhabitants as counted for apportionment
purposes. (Lipsky)"


Author: Jack N. Rakove
Title: The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
Publisher: Belknap Harvard
Date: Copyright 2009 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
Pages: 112
Author: Seth Lipsky
Title: The Citizen's Constitution
Publisher: Basic Books
Date: Copyright 2009 by Seth Lipsky
Pages: 10-11
The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
by Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Hardcover