For nearly 100 years, the House of Representatives has been set at 435 members. But some lawmakers are pushing to increase the number of seats, to reflect the growth in the U.S. population.


What You Need To Know

  • Despite the growing population, the size of the House of Representatives was capped at 435 voting members in 1929

  • More representatives would mean smaller constituencies and the possibility for more specialization among members of Congress

  • But more representatives could make it more difficult for party leaders to get consensus among members, and there’s a lack of office space on the Hill
  • Some lawmakers have introduced bills to expand the House, but any expansion would also mean a change to electoral votes at stake in presidential elections, so the legislation has not advanced

The first House of Representatives had just 65 lawmakers. In the following years, the number of representatives grew as the population grew, until it was capped by an act of Congress in 1929.

“It’s a completely arbitrary number, and it’s not actually the way the framers intended the House to work,” said Drew Penrose, policy strategist at the non-profit Protect Democracy.

Since 1929, the U.S. population has nearly tripled, from about 122 million people to 330 million. Some argue it makes it more difficult for lawmakers to respond to the will of the people.

“The framers had this baseline of 30,000 people per representative,” Penrose said. “That number today is 760,000 people per representative.”

A number of bills have been introduced to expand the House. Supporters make several arguments in favor of passage.

“Having smaller constituencies would make it easier for them to manage constituent service requests,” Penrose said.

Marci Harris of the POPVOX Foundation, a good-government group, said reducing the committee assignments of members would be another benefit.

“In our increasingly complex world, there is, you know, the argument that more specialization, or the ability for each individual member to kind of specialize on fewer topics, would give them a little bit more expertise and opportunity to go deeper,” she said.

But adding representatives could make it more difficult for party leaders to achieve consensus among their members, complicating the legislative process.

“Invariably Congress and whipping votes is always likened to herding cats,” Harris explained. “If you’re adding 150 or 190 cats, that’s many more to herd.”

Expanding the House could also lead to a more basic problem — a lack of office space.

“The reports of staffers working in closets is not just hyperbole,” Harris said. A report from the POPVOX Foundation and Project Democracy proposed that an expansion of House seats could be coupled with the construction of a new office building, with open spaces to encourage bipartisan collaboration.

“Having a place where people can collaborate, or run into each other, or pull up a few tables and sit down together … those are the kinds of things that can facilitate good relationships,” Harris said.

Expanding the House would increase the number of electoral votes at stake in presidential elections. It’s one of the several political consequences that have prevented legislation to enlarge the House from advancing. But as the population continues to grow, pressure to expand the House is likely to grow, too.