• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There have been 435 seats in the House for so long now that it might seem as if the Founding Fathers had foreseen it as a natural ceiling for the chamber’s size. But that isn’t the case: 435 is entirely arbitrary. The House arrived at that number because of political expediency — and it has stayed there because of it, too.

    Up until 1910, when the chamber expanded from 391 to 435 seats,4 the size of the House had experienced a mostly unchecked pattern of growth. Only once, after the 1840 census, did the number of seats in the House not increase; 1910, however, marked the last time the House grew, even though the U.S. population has more than tripled since then, from over 90 million in 1910 to over 330 million today.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-house-got-stuck-at-435-seats/

    It can be changed literally whenever…

    So you're saying for 113 years now, there's been a grand conspiracy where everyone in DC has agreed to deny Americans accurate representation?

    It's capped because of physical space bud. They could telework these days

    *But my point was the space in the Capitol Building is finite, it's not a fucking TARDIS. Not every house rep gets an office in that building

    They have offices in an adjoing building.

    I feel like I'm explaining to my dog the mailman doesn't show up everyday to steal his food, it's an entirely simple concept. There's not space for all 435 to have an office there.

    Pelosi is no longer the most recent ex-speaker.