A little more on the expansion of Congress...

Yesterday, I mentioned that Congressman Alcee Hastings has introduced legislation that would expand the number of US Representatives. In the comments, I was directed by Jeff Quidam to some interesting material.

One is a piece that he has written concerning "Freedom and Legislative District Sizes." The other is an opinion piece by Walter E. Williams, published in the Washington Times a little over a year ago, entitled "Political Monopoly Power."

Now, I am not familiar with Mr. Quidam, but found his writing insightful, and informative. However, I am familiar with Walter Williams. I guess you could say that I am a "fan" of Dr. Williams. Not only is he a fellow Libertarian...he's also just dang funny! He has a brilliant economic & political mind, and loves liberty with every scrawny bone in his body.

In Williams' piece, he references the research done by Mr. Quidam. I highly recommend that you hit those links above. Good food for thought...

So, I'm pondering all of this. Let us say that in order to restore truly representative government, break the stranglehold of lobbyists, and destroy the entrenched powers...that we do enlarge Congress.

Let's not go with the 1 for every 30,000 citizens...let's double that. Heck, let's triple it! Let's say that we are going to have one Rep. for every 90,000 people. I think that's doable in this day and age of easy transportation, good communications, e-mails, twitters, etc. One Rep. should be able to take the pulse of 90,000 people, and not be overburdened.

My Congressional Distrct (LA-4), according to the 2000 census has a population 638,500. This would mean that instead of having 1, that population would be represented by 7 members of Congress. Considering the US population of 300,000,000, that would mean a US House of Representatives numbering 3,333.33 (we'll give Pelosi's district that 1/3 of a vote).

When you begin to let your mind consider such a thing...it don't sound half bad. 1667 votes would be required to pass anything. Now, that's a lot of cats to herd for any lobbyist. That's a lot of favors to hand out by a Speaker, or Whip (majority, or minority) to control their members. Williams makes the point that "other parties" become locked out of any real power by the small number of House Seats.

I can see this! I believe for certain that under an expanded plan like this, Libertarians, Conservatives, Greens, and even Communists would be represented (I mean the Communist Party USA, not the Democrats). My Congressional Distrct (again, LA-4) is a very conservative one. In my 50 years, it has always been represented by either an old-time conservative Democrat, or a very conservative Republican. Therefore, all those less than conservative (or liberals) that live in the District really have no representation of their ideologies when it comes to a floor vote.

Conversely, conservatives in lefty Districts are also locked out.

So, how would it work? Would all 3,333.3 Reps have to haul their cookies up to DC? Not necessarily. In this amazing time that we live, I do not see why it would be necessary at all. Y'all ever heard of electronic balloting & "Gotomeeting.com?" In fact, a Congressman would probably be a better representative if you could catch him at the grocery store, or at church, or the high school ball game...even when Congress is in session. And, they would be less likely to get caught up in the muck of DC, yada yada yada.

It would certainly restrict what we have now...too much power in the hands of the few.

I'm pondering all of it. Williams makes the point that it's not likely to happen. But I had some time on my hands to think on it. So, I did.