Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Democracy and the Constitution Clinic
Publication Date
2020
Keywords
congress, presidential, constitution
Abstract
The House of Representatives was designed to expand alongside the country’s population—yet its membership stopped growing a century ago. Larger and, in some cases, unequal sized congressional districts have left Americans with worse representation, including in the Electoral College, which allocates electors partially on the size of states’ House delegations. This report recommends tying the House’s size to the cube root of the nation’s population, which would lead to 141 more seats. It also calls for an approach to drawing districts that would eliminate gerrymandering.
This report was researched and written during the 2018-2019 academic year by students in Fordham Law School’s Democracy and the Constitution Clinic, which is focused on developing non-partisan recommendations to strengthen the nation’s institutions and its democracy. The clinic's reports are available at law.fordham.edu/democracyreports.
Recommended Citation
Caroline Kane, Gianni Mascioli, Michael McGarry, and Meira Nagel,
Why the House of Representatives Must Be Expanded and How Today’s Congress Can Make It Happen
(2020)
Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/1100
