Where is Our Representation?
October 1999

Who is your representative in Congress? What parts of your state does he represent? How many people are you sharing your congressman with? Most people could not answer all three of these questions. Why? For two reasons. First, many people do not care anymore. Second, the congressman has so many people that he must represent that he does not have much time to let everyone of his constituents know who he is.

Our first congressmen of the first United States Congress only represented 30,000 people each. Today that number is about 600,000 people. That is astonishing! One congressman is required to represent 600,000. How can one man know what 600,000 different people desire?

During the framing of the Constitution, James Madison expressed concern about a large constituency. He is recorded as saying, “They will not possess enough confidence of the people and would be too sparsely taken from the people to bring them all the local information which would frequently be wanted.”

As the country grew so did Congress, this was to make sure the constituency stayed at a small number. But in 1912, Congress froze the number of representatives at 435. Since that time the constituency of each congressman has increased to about 600,000 people.

The founding fathers of our great country would be appalled at such a large number. Returning to a smaller constituency and a larger House of Representatives could possibly remedy several hot issues today. For instance there would be less money spent on individual representative’s political campaigns. This may in turn help with the campaign finance reform that so many want addressed. Also, people may feel more in touch with their congressman, making for a better voter turnout.

Of course the chance of increasing the number of congressman to 8,000 representatives is not very likely, but it is what our founding fathers had envisioned. They may not have dreamed of our country’s size today, but I do not think it would have mattered. They knew representation was important!