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The Apportionment Act

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Paul191145

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Is it valid to change part of the Constitution with mere legislation? Instead of making and ratifying an actual Constitutional amendment, and if so how and why?
 
Why amend it when the SC can simply reinterpret it ?
Just require SC rulings to be unanimous and require it contain at least 1 member from each major party.
 
Individual said:
Why amend it when the SC can simply reinterpret it ?
Just require SC rulings to be unanimous and require it contain at least 1 member from each major party.
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That's essentially what's been done thus far, and IMHO that's the root of most of the nation's problems.
 
The U.S. Constitution is very clear on ratification of amendments.

  • Congress needs to approve the amendment by a 2/3 vote.
  • A notification and syllabus regarding the amendment must be sent out to governors of each state.
  • State legislatures consider whether to approve the proposed amendment.
  • Any proposed amendment must be ratified by 3/4 of the states.
 
SkyChief said:
The U.S. Constitution is very clear on ratification of amendments.

  • Congress needs to approve the amendment by a 2/3 vote.
  • A notification and syllabus regarding the amendment must be sent out to governors of each state.
  • State legislatures consider whether to approve the proposed amendment.
  • Any proposed amendment must be ratified by 3/4 of the states.
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Yes, but my point is the Apportionment Act essentially changed part of Article I with mere legislation, much like marijuana was declared illegal shortly after prohibition ended, an amendment was needed to outlaw alcohol, but apparently not marijuana, just a bit incorrect and inconsistent.
 
Paul191145 said:
Is it valid to change part of the Constitution with mere legislation? Instead of making and ratifying an actual Constitutional amendment, and if so how and why?
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Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the US Constitution says in part, "The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative..." That specific value, by the way, was the only personal request George Washington made, as the presiding president of the convention, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

By fixing the number of House Representatives, the Apportionment Act of 1911 did not change the US Constitution. The US Constitution determines the minimum number of people a House Representative may represent. The Apportionment Act effectively says there is no upper limit to the number of people one House Representative may represent. Which is why the value of the vote diminishes with each passing generation. Your parent's vote was worth twice what yours is worth, and your grandparent's vote was worth four times the value of your vote.

What Congress cannot do is increase the number of House Representatives so that there is more than one per 30,000 people, but they can constitutionally increase the number of people one House Representative can represent.

Personally, I think there needs to be an upper limit on how many people one House Representative can represent. If we limit it to one House Representative for every million people, the House would currently have 335 House Representatives instead of 435. More importantly, as the population grows, so would the House of Representatives. Which it is not doing now.
 
Glitch said:
Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the US Constitution says in part, "The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative..." That specific value, by the way, was the only personal request George Washington made, as the presiding president of the convention, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

By fixing the number of House Representatives, the Apportionment Act of 1911 did not change the US Constitution. The US Constitution determines the minimum number of people a House Representative may represent. The Apportionment Act effectively says there is no upper limit to the number of people one House Representative may represent. Which is why the value of the vote diminishes with each passing generation. Your parent's vote was worth twice what yours is worth, and your grandparent's vote was worth four times the value of your vote.

What Congress cannot do is increase the number of House Representatives so that there is more than one per 30,000 people, but they can constitutionally increase the number of people one House Representative can represent.

Personally, I think there needs to be an upper limit on how many people one House Representative can represent. If we limit it to one House Representative for every million people, the House would currently have 335 House Representatives instead of 435. More importantly, as the population grows, so would the House of Representatives. Which it is not doing now.
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I disagree, my interpretation is that each Representative has no more than 30K people, not a minimum, but a maximum. Therefore the AA definitely did change the Constitution, and the result is much less than desirable.
 
Paul191145 said:
I disagree, my interpretation is that each Representative has no more than 30K people, not a minimum, but a maximum. Therefore the AA definitely did change the Constitution, and the result is much less than desirable.
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But that isn't what the US Constitution actually says. It says that there cannot be more than one Representative for every 30,000 people. Which is establishing the absolute minimum amount of people one Representative may represent. The US Constitution does not place an upper limit on the number of people one Representative may represent, just the minimum number. That was left up to Congress to establish, which they did under the Apportionment Act of 1911.

I agree that it is not a good solution. Primarily because the Apportionment Act eliminated proportional representation. In order to get proportional representation back, a maximum number of people for each Representative must be established. Which nobody is willing to do.
 
Currently there are 435 voting members of the House of Representatives. The US currently has a population of 335,088,730. Which means that there are currently one House Representative for every 770,319 people. Establishing a maximum number higher than that means someone is losing representation. Establishing a maximum number lower than that means someone is gaining representation. Since most people are going to balk at giving up representation, a lower value would seem to be a more acceptable choice. However, a lower population maximum also means more House Representatives. Fixing the maximum value at 500,000 people per Representative, for example, would add 235 more House Representatives, bringing the total up to 670.

It would certainly be a more diverse House of Representatives. However, I question the practicality of so many Representatives, each with their own agenda. There is already 10,000+ pieces of legislation introduced every two years in Congress, with fewer than 5% of those ever becoming law. Nevertheless, it would be actual proportional representation.

If you could fix the maximum number of people per Representative, what number would be your choice?
 
Glitch said:
But that isn't what the US Constitution actually says. It says that there cannot be more than one Representative for every 30,000 people. Which is establishing the absolute minimum amount of people one Representative may represent. The US Constitution does not place an upper limit on the number of people one Representative may represent, just the minimum number. That was left up to Congress to establish, which they did under the Apportionment Act of 1911.

I agree that it is not a good solution. Primarily because the Apportionment Act eliminated proportional representation. In order to get proportional representation back, a maximum number of people for each Representative must be established. Which nobody is willing to do.
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Due to the way the framers worded many things in the Constitution "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand" can be interpreted either way, but it doesn't make sense to me that they would set only a minimum number in such a sparsely populated nation at the time. This is my rationale for interpreting it to be a maximum, rather than a minimum. If it were up to me to fix a maximum number of people each member of the House represented, I think either 500K or at the very most 1 million.
 
Paul191145 said:
Due to the way the framers worded many things in the Constitution "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand" can be interpreted either way, but it doesn't make sense to me that they would set only a minimum number in such a sparsely populated nation at the time. This is my rationale for interpreting it to be a maximum, rather than a minimum. If it were up to me to fix a maximum number of people each member of the House represented, I think either 500K or at the very most 1 million.
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Although, I think the Apportionment Aft was undone/updated by this act:
en.wikipedia.org

Uniform Congressional District Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Paul191145 said:
I don't think so, the AA fixed the number of members of the House of Representatives nearly 100 years ago and it has remained at 435 to this day, resulting in highly uneven representation at the federal level.
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Well, it depends on what you're more concerned about. If it's the fixation of the number of Representatives, that's the AA. If you're looking at what started the modern-day practice of gerrymandering where all districts must be the same size (not required by the Constitution), it's the UCDA.
 
PoliSciPulse said:
Well, it depends on what you're more concerned about. If it's the fixation of the number of Representatives, that's the AA. If you're looking at what started the modern-day practice of gerrymandering where all districts must be the same size (not required by the Constitution), it's the UCDA.
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I'm actually concerned about all the ways the 2 major parties have been avoiding and violating the Constitution for decades.
 
Paul191145 said:
I'm actually concerned about all the ways the 2 major parties have been avoiding and violating the Constitution for decades.
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Well, that's an enormous list! Where does this one place on your list of priorities?
 
PoliSciPulse said:
Well, that's an enormous list! Where does this one place on your list of priorities?
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I would put this in the top 5, along with the flawed interpretation of the GW clause and the Sherman Act.
 
Paul191145 said:
Due to the way the framers worded many things in the Constitution "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand" can be interpreted either way, but it doesn't make sense to me that they would set only a minimum number in such a sparsely populated nation at the time. This is my rationale for interpreting it to be a maximum, rather than a minimum. If it were up to me to fix a maximum number of people each member of the House represented, I think either 500K or at the very most 1 million.
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There can only be one way to correctly interpret what they wrote. If the number of Representatives "shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand" it can only mean that you cannot have two or more Representatives for every 30,000 people. Since one Representative is the maximum number for every 30,000, it is establishing the absolute minimum number of people per Representative.

No maximum number could be established because the framers understood that the population would continue to increase. So the number of people a Representative can represent will continue to increase with every passing generation.

The Apportionment Act of 1792, which was based on the 1790 Census, was the second one enacted by Congress. President George Washington vetoed the first apportionment act passed by Congress - the first veto in US history. In the second Apportionment Act of 1792 each district used an average of 34,436 people per Representative. After the 1800 Census that number increased to 34,609 people per Representative. After the 1810 Census that number increased again to 36,377

After every Census the number of people each Representative represents continued to increase. As of the 2020 Census the number of people per Representative averages 761,169.

However, prior to 1911 the number of House Representatives was not fixed. Therefore, as the population increased, so did the number of Representatives. From 1789 until 1911 the US had proportional representation. However, when Congress fixed the number of Representatives they also ended proportional representation.
 
Glitch said:
As of the 2020 Census the number of people per Representative averages 761,169.

However, prior to 1911 the number of House Representatives was not fixed. Therefore, as the population increased, so did the number of Representatives. From 1789 until 1911 the US had proportional representation. However, when Congress fixed the number of Representatives they also ended proportional representation.
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Here is where the problem lies, regardless of how you interpret the wording.
 
Paul191145 said:
Here is where the problem lies, regardless of how you interpret the wording.
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I agree. We need to figure out a way to get the House of Representatives back to proportionally represent the population. Which can only happen if the number of Representatives increases or decreases with the population. The two values need to be directly related to each other. Which means that a maximum number of people per Representative needs to be established.

We already have a minimum number enshrined within the US Constitution, but what should the maximum number be?

One proposal in 2020 by Fordham University School of Law suggested establishing the maximum number of people a Representative can represent using the cubed root of the population. Which if used with the 2020 population of 335,942,003, you end up with 695 House Representatives. Personally, I like using the 500,000 value. It is nice round number and would result in 672 total House Representatives. What would be your maximum number?
 
Glitch said:
I agree. We need to figure out a way to get the House of Representatives back to proportionally represent the population. Which can only happen if the number of Representatives increases or decreases with the population. The two values need to be directly related to each other. Which means that a maximum number of people per Representative needs to be established.

We already have a minimum number enshrined within the US Constitution, but what should the maximum number be?

One proposal in 2020 by Fordham University School of Law suggested establishing the maximum number of people a Representative can represent using the cubed root of the population. Which if used with the 2020 population of 335,942,003, you end up with 695 House Representatives. Personally, I like using the 500,000 value. It is nice round number and would result in 672 total House Representatives. What would be your maximum number?
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I think the 500K number is a good maximum.
 
Glitch said:
Personally, I like using the 500,000 value. It is nice round number and would result in 672 total House Representatives.
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If I'm one of the 500,000, how tf does some politician "represent" me in any meaningful way?
 
aociswundumho said:
If I'm one of the 500,000, how tf does some politician "represent" me in any meaningful way?
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The same way some of them represent many more currently, this as well as the mindlessness and corruption of the two party system are merely scratching the surface of the problems with the current fed gov.
 
Paul191145 said:
Is it valid to change part of the Constitution with mere legislation? Instead of making and ratifying an actual Constitutional amendment, and if so how and why?
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What specifically are you talking about?
 
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