Opinion | When it comes to reforming the House of Representatives, it’s time to think bigger – By Cerin Lindgrensavage (The Hill) / June 26, 2023
Recently, Professor Danielle Allen has written a series of columns exploring what would happen if we increased the size of the House of Representatives. After years of postponing the necessary maintenance, Allen asks us to consider our Founding Fathers’ vision of the People’s House as a body that would grow with the population of the country it represents. Could increasing the size of the House help unlock Congress’s potential and “get our politics working again”?
Professor Steven Lubet recently responded with an emphatic “no.” “Adding members to the House,” Lubet insisted, “will only increase partisanship and feed extremism” because state legislatures “have perfected the art of gerrymandering” and will simply allow dominant parties to entrench their positions.
His fear is understandable. Partisan gerrymandering has succeeded in rendering many congressional seats “safe” for the incumbent party — leaving the legislature’s mapmakers with more say in who is elected than the voters themselves.
