There are currently 435 members of the United States House of Representatives.
How was this number set?
That number was initially set with the Apportionment Act of 1911. The law, at the time, allowed for one representative each for Arizona and New Mexico when they became states. Then with the Reapportionment Act of 1929, the number was set firmly at 435 with a method for distributing 435 seats after each census.
Here’s the maddening part. In 1910, when the 435 number was first derived, the population stood at 92,228,496. In the 1930 census, the first after the 435 number was set in statutory stone, the population stood at 122,775,046. In the 2010 census, the last we took, the population stood at 308,745,538.
So let’s just do some simple back of the napkin math. The 435 number was derived when there was less than 100 million people in the country and we now stand at 300 million. Okay, that’s pretty simple math, so let’s just triple the number of House members from 435 to 1305. Yeah, that sounds like a lot, but let’s look to the nation that initially held the colonies that would become our nation. The UK Parliament has 650 members in the House of Commons and a national population of ~64 million. Let’s just say 1 MP in the House of Commons for every 100,000 people. Extrapolating, that would mean more than 3000 members of the US House. I think using the 1305 number is more than reasonable.
Just doing some more back of the napkin math based upon the 2010 census data, if we expanded the House to 1305 members, California would get 154 Representatives and Wyoming, the state with the currently lowest population in the US, would come out with possibly 2.
This makes a massive difference in relative influence in the Electoral College, though. With this change, California goes from 55 Electoral votes to 156 and Wyoming goes from 3 to 4. That’s a significant change. The small states would still have more Electoral College influence than the large states, but the influence would be decreased.
With this update, the Electoral College would move from 538 members to 1408 members. 705 to win. Such a change would also lessen the effect of attempts to gerrymander the Electoral College as has been threatened by Republicans in the past. Gerrymandering Congressional Districts would also become far more difficult. I see it as win-win for everybody.
Could something like this ever happen? Only if people push for such a change.