Article the First
By John D. Turner
11 Nov 2015

“The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative” – U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 2

2016 is a major election year, and both the Republicans and the Democrats are fielding candidates for the open Presidential seat. In fact, they are fielding them in droves; 16 candidates have declared so far on the Republican side, although two have already dropped out, and some 5-6 on the Democrat side, with the possibility that at least one more might throw his hat into the ring.

Political campaigns are fueled by money. Presidential campaigns require a lot of money. But even “lesser” races, for Senator or Representative, require what someone like me would consider “big bucks” in order to be successful. During the last election cycle in 2012, an “off year” election, House members raised an average of $1,689,580; in the Senate, that average rose to $10,467,451. Of course, the actual amount per campaign depends a lot on a lot of factors; who is running, do they have competition, is it a key seat, etc.

And if you want to run for President of the United States - better have deep pockets! The conservative estimate is that you will need at least $500 million to seek the highest office in the land. In 2008, President Obama raised and spent $750 million in his successful run for the office. This number includes money raised and spent in the primaries as well as in the actual election after he won his party’s nomination. Several of the candidates have stated that they expect to raise $1 billion in their effort to win the Presidency during this election cycle.

So where does that money come from?

Some of it comes from ordinary citizens like you and me, mostly in small donations. I don’t think I have ever given more than $25 to any political campaign in my life. But even if I wanted to give as much as I could, as an individual I can only give a total of $2,700 to a particular candidate per election. I could if I wished, also give an additional $30,800 to a national party committee, $10,000 to a state, district & local party committee, and $5,000 per year to a Political Action Committee (PAC) supporting my preferred candidate. And most folks, like me, come nowhere near maxing out those amounts.

While it may be that a campaign for an uncontested seat in a minor Congressional district might be able to be funded on individual donations, it is obvious that a Presidential bid cannot; and in truth, pretty much every campaign seeks and will obtain funding from sources other than individual donations. The entire process is extremely convoluted and the rules are complex. But the bottom line is that lots of money is funneled to campaigns by businesses and wealthy individuals by various means. Collectively, these are referred to as “special interest groups.”

You have probably heard the term “super PAC” bandied about. If you are a Democrat, you have likely heard of the “evil” Koch Brothers, who, according to that side, pretty much single-handedly elect the Republicans of their choice by buying the elections using money from the various super PACs they run. If you are a Republican, the “evil” broker you are likely familiar with is George Soros, who, aside from being the evil billionaire kingmaker like the Koch’s, also carries the cachet of being a foreign national as well.

Because campaigns require so much money, and because most of that does not come from individuals, the “special interests” have become an increasingly important factor in national elections, based on the money they can bring to the table. While it is true that it is the individual who, with their vote, decides the election, it is the money that determines whether or not a particular candidate can even come to the table and, once there, how long they can remain. You may be the best candidate in the race – but if the public never hears your message, or you are drowned out by the opposing side, it will make little difference in the end.

So when you send your letter to your representative demanding attention to your problem, or a lobbyist for a PAC stops by his or her door, which do you think he pays more attention to? The answer is of course, a bit more complicated, but it boils down to that at least in the public perception. And as we are frequently told, in many cases perception is reality.

This may seem to be a problem of money, and on the surface it is. But deep down it is fundamentally a problem of representation. That lobbyist represents more dollars than you do – and he or she always will; that’s the way the rules are written. But ultimately, elections are won with votes – which you and others like you represent. The lobbyist doesn’t represent votes – he represents the means to obtain those votes. The actual votes still rest with the people who cast them.

And that representation, what you represent as an individual to that representative, has been horribly diluted by the fact that each representative is representing not 30,000 people as originally envisioned, but instead, 805,000 people! This year you and your vote represent just 1/805,000th of the total votes in your district. And every year, the number of people represented increases, and your influence continues to wane.

Did you ever wonder why we have 435 members of the House of Representatives, also known as congressmen or congresswomen, or as I like to refer to them, “congresscritters?” Article 1, Section 2 of the US Constitution says the number “shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand,” establishing an upper limit, but if we actually had one for every thirty thousand, we would today have 10,833 of them scurrying about! Congress recognized this problem eventually, and on August 8, 1911, fixed the maximum number of representatives at 435, where it has stayed since 1913 when Public Law 62-5 took effect.

There is nothing magical about the number 435; we could change it anytime we choose; all we would need to do is change Public Law 62-5. And we should change it, because limiting the number to 435 for the past 102 years, while our population continued to climb has not only diluted our individual ability to influence our elected representatives, but ensures that as our population continues to climb, our already vanishingly small influence will continue to decline until it vanishes completely – if it hasn’t done so already, particularly in the larger states.

In 2004, I wrote an article that made the case as to why we need to increase the size of Congress. I am not going to take time to regurgitate that argument here. Just go back and read that article. Instead I am going to focus on how we might go about doing that, and why the approach I am going to propose might be the best idea for doing so.

This is not the first time this has come up in the history of our country, and it might just shock you to discover that others foresaw this early on and came up with a solution.

Back in September 25, 1789, a package of 12 amendments to the United States Constitution were approved by the first Congress and sent to the state legislatures for ratification. Ten of these articles were ratified in 1791, and became known, collectively, as the Bill of Rights. One of those amendments, which was not part of the Bill of Rights, later became the 27th Amendment to the Constitution on 7 May 1992, following ratification by the state of Michigan, which became the 38th state to ratify the amendment, a whopping 202 years, seven months, and 12 days after it was sent to the state legislatures for ratification!

You may have noticed that 12 amendments were sent out, 11 were ratified, leaving one amendment still “in the queue” as it were. So what is that one outstanding amendment awaiting ratification?

Interestingly, that amendment is known as the Congressional Apportionment Amendment, also known as Article the First, because it was the first amendment in the original package of 12 that was sent to the states for ratification. Its purpose was to establish a formula for determining the size of the House of Representatives, and how the representatives were to be apportioned following the constitutionally mandated census every 10 years. The amendment reads as follows:

“After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.”