2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #171 “A MORE REPRESENTATIVE CONGRESS”

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Okay, here is a suggestion as to how we could have a more
representative United States Congress. By
way of background, when the House of Representatives first came into being in
1789 there were only 65 members. That
number steadily increased until 1911, when Congress passed the “Apportionment
Act,” which capped the number of Representatives at the same 435 that we have
today. Since the population of the
United States was about 92 million in 1911, that meant that each Congressman
then represented about 211,000 people.
What if we were to amend the Appropriations Act to provide that we have
the same proportion today as we had then?
Simple mathematics tells us that, since we now have a population of
about 325 million people, this would increase the number of the members of Congress
to about 1,540. So that is impractical,
right? Well, actually, in today’s world it
is not. What if all members had just a
home office with a small staff and never went to Washington DC at all? Modern technology would allow all members to
caucus, meet publically as well as privately, be informed, carry out their
duties – and vote (electronically).

All of this would work to the
benefit of We the People! Why? Many reasons.
Since there would be many more members who were more geographically dispersed,
it would be much more difficult for lobbyists to influence them. And the members of Congress could better
maintain and be influenced by local contacts because they would always be at
home. Of course, more members would cost
us taxpayers more salary, but it would also result in great savings in travel
costs, not to mention paying for only one office instead of two and vastly reducing
the numbers of staff personnel. In fact,
given that situation, maybe we could/should go back to the numbers used when
Congress first began in 1789 where, with a population of about 3.9 million, each
Representative represented only about 60,000 people. In today’s world that would result in about
5,400 Representatives. In both of these
situations We the People’s voices would be stronger and the special interest
lobbying would be more substantially curtailed – all to the enhancement of Liberty! At the very least, it is something to think
about.

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Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012
Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with Governor Gary Johnson as
the candidate for President

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Quote of the Week: When Henry Kissinger was meeting with Premier
Zhou Enlai in 1972 as a part of Nixon going to China, Kissinger mentioned that
all revolutions have a long-term cost, which the Premier disputed. So when Kissinger asked “Well, what about the
French Revolution?” Zhou Enlai responded by saying: “It’s too early to
tell.”

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