About Thirty-Thousand.org

Established in 2004, Thirty-Thousand.org (TTO) is a non-partisan and non-profit organization that conducts research on, and educates the public about, the benefits of establishing Congressional districts that are both smaller and equally-sized relative to their populations. Thirty-thousand.org believes that the ideal House size is the maximum specified by the Constitution: One Representative for every 30,000 people. Hence, our name.

At a very minimum, the size of the House should be that specified by the intended version of Article the first: One Representative for every 50,000 people. Substantially increasing the number of federal Representatives will extend the ground of public confidence in our government and ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

In addition, this will bring the U.S. House into compliance with the Constitution’s one-person-one-vote requirement. According to the Supreme Court, achieving “one person, one vote” parity requires that for any given legislature, the electoral districts be equally sized relative to their populations. That way, each member of the legislature represents the same number of people, thereby assuring that the citizens have fairly equivalent representation. This constitutional principle is followed by every legislative body in America except for the U.S. House of Representatives, which disregards it completely. As a result, the sizes of congressional districts vary wildly from state to state. It is egregiously inequitable for one Representative to represent nearly a million people, while another one represents less than half that many. The only way to equalize the districts nationally is to substantially reduce their size. The maximum congressional district size proposed by the Founders would assure that one-person-one-vote parity is finally achieved across the country, as well as greatly improve the quality of our representation in the House.

Objectives:

• Provide information about the substantial degradation of our representative democracy as a result of increasingly oversized congressional districts.
• Educate the public on the benefits of returning control of the House of Representatives to the people by reestablishing the smaller House district sizes envisioned by this nation’s founders.
• Identify the challenges associated with this transformation along with possible solutions to address those challenges.
• Stimulate debate around all the foregoing areas.

Anyone with material to contribute (e.g., data, studies, historical documents, etc.) is encouraged to do so. Also welcome are expressions of support, feedback on this web site, and well-reasoned opposition to it. Join the discussion in the Thirty-Thousand.org Forum.

Donations welcome

Thirty-Thousand.org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (Federal Tax ID: 26-0176234). All donations and other revenue received by Thirty-Thousand.org (TTO) goes to cover operating, website, and marketing expenses.  No salary or consulting fee is paid to anyone in management. Donations can be made via our secured donation portal. If you would like to offer non-financial support to Thirty-Thousand.org, please use our Contact Form.