Sabato: Time to Expand the House

Political analyst and UVA professor Larry Sabato argues for real Congressional reform: more than doubling the size of the House of Representatives:

The Founders intended the House of Representatives, with its small districts and frequent elections, to be the pulse of American democracy. But today’s House often has no measurable pulse at all, its arteries clogged with special interest agendas and self-satisfied members. With guaranteed reelection in computer-drawn districts gerrymandered to further partisan interests, representatives often escape electoral accountability. Challengers are limited by the large size of the districts and their inability to raise enough campaign money. As a result, politics has become cartel-ized-not by Democrats or Republicans, but by incumbents and their affluent lobbying allies.

Increasing the size of the House of Representatives from 435 to 1,000 seems nearly unthinkable — a change too large to ever be accomplished. Nevertheless, it would achieve many top goals identified by would-be reformers. It would reduce the influence of special interests by making it harder to ‘buy’ a majority. It would force Representatives to pay more attention to constituents, by making each constituent vote more important. It would make many races far more competitive, since incumbents would be unable to raise as much as they did before, and since it would cost less to wage a competitive campaign.

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