Why are there only 435 representatives for a nation of 300 million people? This is the question at the premise of a new book and blog by Chicago author and Conscious Choice contributor Bryan W. Brickner. The book Article the first of the Bill of Rights tells the forgotten story of constitutional representation in America.

"On 4 January 2007, the new members of Congress took their oath of office for the first time," says Brickner. "In doing so, the new Representatives and Senators swore to defend these twelve words from Article 1: 'The Number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand.' The question is, will the new members work to enforce the twelve words from Article 1? And if they do not, why?"

Brickner contends that Congress has not obeyed the "representation ratio" in Article 1 since the Second Congress began ignoring it in April 1792. Although the constitution mandated that the House would grow in size every ten years, concurrent with each new census, the last time Congress added new seats in the House was 1911 - or 95 years ago. Then, in 1929, Congress voted to pass a law capping the number of Representatives at 435. Since then, the 435 have simply shifted around the various states, reflecting changes in state populations. It is important to note, says Brickner, that the Constitution was never amended, as is required to make such a change. Instead of one representative for every 30,000 Americans, the ratio today is roughly one for every 700,000. Consider that the next time you try to set up an appointment with your "representative."

Compared with other established democracies, a 435-member House for a nation of 300 million appears paltry at best...

-The British House of Commons has 651 members who represent a population of about 60 million (ratio = 1:92,000), and the...

-French National Assembly consists of 577 members for about 60 million people (ratio = 1:104,000).

-Even the Iraqi national assembly which America helped design has a Council of Representatives of 275 for a population of around 23 million (ratio = 1:84,000).

-Of course, India, the world's largest democracy, has just 545 members of their "lower house" to represent over 1.1 billion people, a ratio of 1:2,000,000.

Writing in 2001, former Congressional aide Matthew Cossolotto said, "The public and the media seem to have grown so accustomed to a 435-member House that we accept it as the natural order of things. But the Constitution does not stipulate an upper limit to the number of representatives. We could just as easily have 535 or 635 members in the House. Increasing the House by 100 seats would shake up Washington more than any other election reform proposal now being contemplated. It would spread access to representation and power to more women and minorities than any other single action." This more moderate approach seems to have a greater chance of coming to fruition than a House with 10,000 representatives, particularly in an era when the public seems to want less Federal government, not more. Can you imagine 10,000 representatives living like the fat cats in Washington do today?

Still, Brickner is undaunted. "Our political system is a mess," he adds. "But it wasn't designed to be so. Instead, there is a simple way to change things: Let's build a new House that actually looks like the rest of America." It would be good to begin representing We the People.

Book: "Article the first of the Bill of Rights"
http://www.lulu.com/bryanbrickner

Blog: Representation and a Constitutional US Congress
http://bryanbrickner.blogspot.com/