NoCapFund: Why do we have 435 members in the House of Representatives?

 I had to attributed this to another YouTube channel - No Cap Fund - because I don't want to see this blog go on a Mr. Beat overload. He had talked about this in the past and have one video to show about it.

Mr. Beat wants to uncap the number of members in the US House of Representatives and he goes through the history of apportionment of representatives. Uncapping the number of representatives doesn't involve a constitutional amendment, it involves an act of Congress.

Mr. Beat has been attempting to get his congressman to take a stand on this issue although it appears a candidate for Congress is willing to take this issue on. And also it appears an Illinois Congresman Sean Casten seems ready to take on this issue as discussed in a live stream.

Here's the most recent video on this topic that Mr. Beat made [VIDEO]

My position on this is ambiguous. 

I can believe as stated in this video that polarization is a very serious thing that's worth putting a damper on. Does this necessarily mean more representatives? Does this mean a far more ideologically diverse representatives?

I do like the idea of bringing down the number of people in each district. Say perhaps instead of the 800K population per district we instead create more districts that perhaps could be about half that or less. 

Another thing noted is that if you mess with the number of representatives, you may also mess with the Electoral College count - now that's in the constitution (electoral votes are no. of representatives + Senators). Perhaps this means a recalcuation of the Electoral College math.

How could I sell this for say minority districts perhaps this might mean it would be easier in this state at least to create districts for Hispanics, Blacks, and others depending on where they may reside. I want to eliminate gerrymandering and who knows if this may address that. However, the states control drawing congressional maps more than the federal gov't does.

I think this is worth a discussion as opposed to killing this because reflexively we may decide there shouldn't be more politicians. Should we have more than 435 representatives? What do you think?

Monsieur Z: The Reform That Could Fix The Electoral College

 [VIDEO] We're in an election year and this subject will likely come up depending upon the outcome.

I could see this election being a situation where like in 2016 or 2000 the popular vote winner loses in the Electoral College. How does that happen because the President of the United States isn't elected directly by the people. He (or she) is elected by the Electoral College.

As Monsieur Z explains in most states when we vote for our choice for President in November (or when you early vote) you're actually voting for the slate of electors who will actually vote for the President. Usually these slate of electors are pledged to vote for their party's nominee for President. Whichever candidate wins the popular vote in a given state they win their party's slate of electors.

Of course as Mr. Z explains that practice had evolved overtime. The system was conceived at a time when political parties weren't even a consideration and once they became important then the politicians tried to game the system and get it to benefit them.

So, what to do when the nation as a whole is polarized? Also what about the polarization of different states?

In that second question let's say a state is a lot like Illinois downstate may vote Republican, however, the Chicago area votes heavily Democrat. And the Chicago area has most of the state's population. Meaning odds are the state will vote heavily Democrat for President.

What if to mitigate some of these nuances from state-to-state you redraw the states. You attempt to evenly distribute the regional differences of each state to ensure better representation of these differences. That's the Utahism Mr. Z is discussing?

Regardless this Electoral College is something that we will be discussing as we get closer to Election Day. Are you voting?