Why is the U.S. House of Representatives So Small?

If membership of the House of Representatives had kept pace with U.S. population growth over the past century there would be 1,092 Representatives instead of just 435. For most of the past several decades, the majority of Americans have disapproved of the job Congress is doing, so it may seem counterintuitive to suggest that what we need is a larger Congress. But that may be exactly what we need to reinvigorate our democracy, while also bringing the House of Representatives closer to the representation envisioned in the U.S. Constitution.

In the next few months, the U.S. Census Bureau will finalize the 2020 Census and the state population totals will be used to reallocate the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. But why does the House have only 435 members, a number that is historically small, and small in comparison with parliamentary bodies in many other countries?

The U.S. Constitution sets the size of the Senate at two members per state, but leaves the composition of the House up to Congress, within a few parameters. Throughout the United States’ first century the size of the House of Representatives grew as the population grew and new states joined the union. Then, in 1929, the Permanent Apportionment Act capped the House at 435 members, the level established after the 1910 Census. After every decennial census since then, house seats have been reapportioned among states within this cap, even after Alaska and Hawaii joined the union in 1959.