The Cube Root Model: It’s not the law, it’s a suggestion!
The cube root “law” is frequently cited in articles and papers about determining the optimal size of legislative bodies. That’s surprising, as not only does it fail to materially ameliorate any of the problems it is supposed to address, but its underlying reasoning is profoundly flawed.
The Electoral College Is Not Working the Way the Founders Planned
The founders expected the Electoral College to grow with the nation’s total population, along with the House of Representatives. However, because its size has been frozen in time for so long, its inequities have been increasingly exacerbated.
Massive Electoral Districts Corrupt the Senate
Given that the senatorial districts are much larger than the congressional districts, Special Interest corruption of our Senators is an even greater danger to our republic. There is only way to eliminate that problem.
The NY Times’ proposals for enlarging the House would be ineffectual
The New York Times identifies some of the problems resulting from the House of Representatives being “far too small”. Unfortunately, their preferred solutions would fail to solve those problems.
How Congress Politically Marginalizes Communities of Interest
Because the House of Representatives is far too small, many smaller communities are subsumed into enormous and politically contrasting congressional districts, effectively disenfranchising millions of Americans.
Multimember Congressional Districts in the Early Republic
In the Early Republic the Representatives were elected to Congress either from single-member districts or as part of a statewide slate.
Game Theory: Miscounting the Census
Based on data provided by the Census Bureau, the 2020 population census appears to have been heavily biased to advantage one political party over the other. As it turns out, having too small of a House of Representatives creates a powerful incentive for some states to game the census process.
Population Miscounts and Apportionment Inequities
Another inequity resulting from having too few Representatives is that relatively small population miscounts produce inordinately inequitable misallocations of representation.
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