# 199 More Representatives By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2024-06-04 The number of seats in the House of Representatives has been the same since 1913. The cap of 435 Representatives was instituted by the Reapportionment Act of 1929. In 1913, the population of the United States was 97,225,000. In 1913, a Representative, on average, would represent 223,506 constituents. Now, the population of the United States is about 335 million people. This means that, on average, a Representative has about 769,919 constituents. If things were working great, there would be no issue. This would be efficient. However, things are not working great. Things are hardly working. The population is dissatisfied, and part of the dissatisfaction is that those in Washington, D.C., do not represent us. If we want to get the level of representation down to the 1913 level, we need to add 1,063 additional Representatives. This is probably a non-starter. It does, however, indicate the erosion of representation that has occurred since 1913. A more reasonable approach might be to baseline the representation level to the state with the lowest number of constituents per representative. Currently, Rhode Island has an average of 547,981 constituents per representative. Delaware has the worst at 1,031,890 per representative. Taking each state’s population, dividing by 547,981 (Rhode Island’s average representation), and then rounding up to a whole number results in an increase of 199 Representatives. Whereas this is a significant increase from 435, it is more digestible than 1,063 more. Washington is broken. Maybe 199 more Representatives would help it represent us.   #### Related Items [[American]] [[Government]] [[Representation]] [[Politics]] [[Policies]] [[Decision-making]]