Why should there be a 435 seat cap in the House of Representatives?

This is something I never really thought about until I recently watched Tom Woods speaking at the Mises Institute in which he was making the case for secession and decentralization. He also talked about the structure of the House of Representatives which is caped at 435 members regardless the population changes. This got my thought process going. Why is it the House of Representatives needs to be capped at 435 members? As of 2014, average pop. per congressional House district is 713,000. Under that model, cities like LA or NYC have lots of representatives with the size of the district being very small.

To contrast that, a state like Kansas where it’s 1st congressional House district (represented by Tim Huelskamp) covers at least two-thirds of the entire state. Under this setup, entire rural communities can be ignored in favor of the urban areas. Tom Woods said in the video if this system were applied in the 1790s, then there’d be total of 4 members of the House. In reverse, under the old system there’d be over 10,000 members of the House of Representatives with each district made up of roughly 32,000 people.

Now a lot of people would probably be hesitant to endorse a 10,000 member body so I’ll be modest and say maybe 80,000 people per district. That’d be 4,000 members in total. Point is that there should at least some consideration for reform in how House congressional districts are shaped. Because under this current where there’s on average of 713,000, some people particularly in rural areas can be left behind and ignored by their Representative. If the average pop. per district were let’s say 55,000, then here in Oklahoma my town of Bartlesville and the surrounding areas of Dewey and Copan would be eligible for their own Representative in Congress. Whereas now we’re currently part of the 1st district that includes Tulsa.

Not saying the House has to be made up of 10,000 Reps, rather membership doesn’t have to be limited to 435 members. Something like 1,000 would be better and represent areas that would otherwise be ignored by politicians. Maybe more liberty lovers could be elected a bigger difference could be made in restraining spending and the size, scope of govt. Just saying

What do you think? Anything I need to improve upon? Let me know in the comments section below. Have a great day and God bless!

Crosspost from Liberty.me.

Congress Doesn’t Change Much

As I’m typing looks like Congress is likely to pass another trillion dollar spending package widely supported by both parties that keeps the government open. For as much as I’d rather have the GOP in control as it means Dipshit can’t do anymore damage, doesn’t mean anything changes significantly. The GOP has almost as bad a habit of out of control spending and expanding govt. power as do the Democrats. Just look at the 4 and a half years they were in charge under G.W. Bush. From the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D which was the largest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ’s Great Society (that is until Obamacare came along).

Not to mention the GOP’s strong habit of foreign interventionism in the Iraq War which in the long run has only resulted total chaos in the region and allowed the rise of barbarians known as ISIS. Afghanistan was initially justified since they attacked us first, but we should’ve withdraw all troops after just 3 or 4 years as opposed to 15 or more (depending on what kind of deal this current administration works out with the Afghan government on how many troops to keep there how long). And keep in mind that right after Bush was elected in 2000, the GOP promised a humble foreign policy. Look how that turned out.

Democrats promised similar arrangements after Obama was elected. Now he’s even worse than Bush when it comes to reckless foreign interventions from Libya and (almost) Syria. Also not mention constant bombing with drones in other countries. And even worse on American civil liberties. I suggest keeping very low expectations of a GOP congress as we’ve seen this before, though at least individuals like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Thomas Massie, Justin Amash and others will keep things accountable of what happens.

What do you think? Is there any improvements I should make? Make yourself heard in the comments section below. Have a great day!