American Democracy is in Crisis

How Repairing Representative Democracy by Uncapping the House Can Fix It

Imagine explaining modern American government to James Madison. You’d tell him that members of the House of Representatives now each serve nearly 800,000 constituents. That presidents increasingly govern through executive orders because Congress struggles to legislate.  That the Supreme Court routinely resolves some of the nation’s most consequential political disputes because Congress so often cannot. Madison would probably stare back at you in horror.

Although Madison and the other Founding Fathers strove to create a system of government that would endure, every democracy eventually gets tested.  When people lose faith that self-government can solve their problems, they begin to look elsewhere.  Some disengage altogether.  That is why a recent poll by The Hill should concern every American: fifty-seven percent of respondents don’t believe our democracy is working^[1]. That’s an alarming number, more than half the nation, who have lost faith in our system of self-government. The loss of confidence is troubling because democracy ultimately depends on trust; trust that citizens can reason and compromise; trust that our institutions will hold up against despots and demagogues; and trust that the country can shift course when something isn’t working. When Americans lose that trust, there is temptation to abandon institutions they believe have failed or to concentrate power in leaders who promise quick solutions. 

This crisis of confidence poses a concrete question about the future of our Democracy. Americans must ask themselves: Can that trust be repaired? 

If the answer is yes, it’s vital not to abandon our constitutional system; we should renew the institutions that have sustained American self-government for nearly 250 years. Chief among them is the principle of direct representation, which is emblematic of democracy at its best.  It’s why the Founding Fathers prioritized it during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and why “no taxation without representation” became the battle cry of the American Revolution.  But Congress, the representative branch of our government, has failed to grow with the nation, upsetting the constitutional balance the Founders intended.  This imbalance has contributed to political polarization, declining trust in government institutions, and a growing tendency for political disputes to be resolved outside the legislative process. 

If Americans feel increasingly disconnected from their government, the simplest and most direct solution is to strengthen the institution designed to represent them.  One way to do that is to expand the U.S. House of Representatives, which has been capped at 435 members since the passage of the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929^[2]. On May 17, 1928, during the House floor debate over the Act’s passage, Representative Ralph Lozier (D-Mich.) said it “is a deliberate attempt to place Congress in a straitjacket.” Deliberate or not, he was right about the change being a straitjacket.

The cap was adopted to prevent the House from becoming too large and unmanageable.  Although supporters cited administrative concerns, the cap also reflected the political realities of the era. Rapid urbanization and immigration were shifting representation away from rural states, making agreement on reapportionment increasingly difficult. Rather than continue expanding the House as it had after previous censuses, Congress permanently capped its size at 435 members, a decision that had the effect of preserving existing political power despite dramatic demographic change. In Mr. Lozier’s words, “There is no sanctity on the number 435.”

Since then, the population has tripled from about 100 million to over 330 million today, yet the number of representatives meant to serve the population has remained unchanged. In the First Congress, each representative served roughly 30,000 constituents. Today, the average district approaches 800,000. The Framers could scarcely have imagined representatives serving populations larger than entire states at the time the Constitution was ratified.  In contrast, other established democracies have expanded their legislatures as their populations have grown.  For example, the United Kingdom, with roughly one-fifth the population of the United States, elects 650 members to the House of Commons. And Germany, whose population is less than one-quarter that of the United States, regularly adjusts the size of its federal legislature to reflect election results and population changes, resulting in a parliament of over 600 members.  In both countries, legislators represent far fewer constituents than the average member of Congress. The United States is an outlier among modern democracies, and this disparity has produced a system in which ordinary Americans feel increasingly voiceless, candidates must raise enormous sums to campaign effectively, and the institution of Congress itself is weakened and ineffectual.  

Americans are not losing faith because democracy has failed. They are losing faith because representation has become too distant. Representative government is built on relationships, and relationships require proximity. A representative who serves nearly 800,000 people cannot know the communities they represent the way members once could. As former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil (D-Mass.) once said, “all politics is local.”  But it’s hard for politics to be local in a district that traverses hundreds of miles and is responsible for nearly one million constituents.  Reaching that many voters requires expensive television advertising, digital campaigns, polling, consultants, and professional fundraising operations. As district populations have grown, successful campaigns have become increasingly dependent on national party networks and large donors rather than personal relationships with constituents. The result is a Congress that spends more time raising money and less time building the local connections that once anchored representative government. As a result, Washington has grown more insulated, campaigns have become more expensive, and ordinary citizens have felt increasingly powerless.

We must remove the straitjacket. 

While no single reform can address all of the nation’s problems, the size of the House is one of the few institutional variables that Congress can change without amending the Constitution. We do not need to abandon the Constitution to save our democracy. We need to restore the constitutional balance that made it successful in the first place.  

There is no shortage of proposals to strengthen American democracy. Some reforms focus on making government more representative, while others focus on making Congress more effective. Expanding the House is the rare reform that accomplishes both, and thus should be viewed as a complement to other democratic reforms, rather than an alternative. For example, it becomes easier to draw fair districts when districts are smaller in population size and cover a smaller geographic area. Campaign finance reforms become more effective when it costs less money to run for Congress because there are more seats. Robust enforcement of the Voting Rights Act can protect equal access to the ballot, but only when minority districts are just as fairly represented in Congress as large rural ones.  And while reforms to congressional staffing, committee resources, and oversight capacity can improve the legislature’s ability to craft policy and hold the executive branch accountable, we still need enough people to handle the increased workload this entails.

With so much reform needed, expanding the House doesn’t just create more space for reformers to win office; it also ensures more Americans’ voices are heard on these complex issues. This will go a long way in repairing trust in our institutions. 

Smaller districts would also transform the nature of congressional campaigns, encouraging a different style of politics and rewarding leaders who prioritize responsibility and local engagement over national prominence. Candidates could spend more time meeting voters in person, addressing community-specific concerns, and building lasting relationships, rather than relying on costly advertising or national fundraising networks. Campaigns would become less dependent on broad ideological appeals designed for massive electorates and more responsive to the everyday concerns of local communities. While no reform can eliminate polarization, representatives who know their constituents personally are often better positioned to build trust and find common ground. 

A larger House would not eliminate the Senate, weaken the presidency, or overturn two centuries of constitutional tradition. Instead, it would revitalize the institution the Framers designed to be closest to the people. With more members, Congress could develop greater policy expertise, devote more time to oversight, and spend less of each day raising campaign funds. Members would have the bandwidth to focus on substantive legislative work, strengthening Congress both as a representative body and as a governing institution. 

Expansion of the House is not without its critics, but international examples demonstrate that larger legislative bodies can function efficiently and deliver more responsive governance.  Most of the cynicism about House expansion is that a larger chamber would be less efficient, more expensive, and more difficult to manage. These concerns are not trivial, as history teaches us that legislative bodies can become unwieldy as membership grows. But the principle of representative government ultimately trumps these concerns, and the increased costs would be a fraction of one percent of the federal budget.  Moreover, Congress already conducts most of its work in smaller groups. Legislation is drafted in committees, negotiated by party leaders, analyzed by professional staff, and debated under carefully structured rules. Floor votes themselves often take only minutes using electronic voting. In practice, the House already relies on the very mechanisms that make large legislative bodies manageable. Other large democratic legislatures operate the same way.  The United Kingdom’s 650-member House of Commons and the European Parliament, with 720-members representing 27 countries, routinely manage debate, committee work, and voting through more modern procedures.  The question is no longer whether a large representative body can function effectively, but whether the House of Representatives can afford to continue underrepresenting its citizens for the sake of administrative convenience.

Taken together, these arguments point toward a surprisingly simple conclusion, and the answer has been hiding in plain sight.  The debate over democratic reform often oscillates between sweeping proposals to redesign American government and calls for stronger executive action to overcome legislative dysfunction. But House expansion points in a different direction. Rather 6than creating a new institution or abandoning an old one, it would restore a principle embedded in the constitutional design from the beginning: as the nation grows, representation should grow proportionally.

Voters may ultimately have different legislative priorities, whether it be to tackle the affordability crisis, have better access to healthcare and education systems, or to strengthen the border through immigration reform. But each of these issues faces the same obstacle: a Congress that struggles to function.  House expansion isn’t a panacea, but it is one of the few reforms that simultaneously strengthens representative government and Congress’s ability to govern effectively. A representative democracy functions best when the overwhelming majority of citizens believe they have a meaningful voice in it. Uncapping the House can help restore that sense of inclusion.

Exactly how large the House should become is open to debate. The Wyoming Rule would expand the House to roughly 570–600 members, while other scholars advocate larger chambers. The precise number is less important than restoring the principle that representation should grow alongside the population.

Restoring that principle, however, is only one piece of rebuilding public confidence in representative government. Conversations about additional reforms, including redistricting, campaign finance, and enforcement of voting rights, are all worthwhile conversations, and as a nation, we should continue to explore multiple ways to strengthen our democracy. A healthier republic will likely require several changes working in concert, and expanding the House makes many of the others more effective.  At a time when Americans are searching for ways to restore confidence in self-government, our focus should also include working together across partisan divides.  Uncapping the House allows us to do just that; it does not reinvent our constitutional system or favor one political party at the expense of the other, it helps restore the balance the Founders intended. 

That balance is now worth revisiting.  James Madison would likely recognize the passions of American politics.  He would recognize fierce elections, ideological divisions, and constitutional disputes, all of which existed in his day.  What he would not recognize is a House of Representatives that no longer grows with the people it represents.  The Founders believed liberty depended on representation because representation creates accountability, and accountability preserves trust. Nearly a century ago, Congress put the branch of government closest to the people in a straitjacket. That straitjacket is now ill-fitting and bursting at the seams. If fifty-seven percent of Americans believe democracy is not working, our first instinct should not be to abandon the constitutional system that has endured for nearly 250 years, but to restore the part of it that has quietly fallen out of balance. Before reinventing American government, we should invite the people to participate by first repairing our most democratic institution.