Revisiting the 1000-seat Congress Concept

The sincerest form of flattery?

Me (December, 2002)

... why not raise the number of House seats to 1000 or more.

Larry Sabato (Yesterday)

From Madison's perspective, a 1,000-member House of Representatives, with about 300,000 constituents per representative, would seem reasonable.

What took ya so long, Larry? More to the point, Sabato does identify a potential gain from such a move:

The typical value of each vote would fall, strengthening a governing party's capacity to pass legislation without buying members' votes with pet projects. Lobbyists, who would gain little from targeting individual members, would focus on influencing public debates rather than brokering dubious backroom deals.

I'd like to believe that, but I'm skeptical. In theory, the horse-trading merely becomes something that gets networked out even moreso than it already is. Furthermore, Sabato states that such a move would likely only result from a Constitutional Amendment - likely only to be accomplished via the states calling a Constitutional Convention. He doesn't say, but I'm guessing that's merely a concession to the belief that members of Congress simply won't give up constituents without a fight. Otherwise, the Constitution provides for the House's ability to set it's own size.