Much of the reason that there is partisan gridlock in the United States House of Representitives is that there are too few members. Too few, you ask, didn't the founding fathers set the size of the House. Yes, they did so originally, but they allowed for it's expansion through a process known as apportionment as new states joined the Union and the population expanded. In 1789 there were 13 states and 59 Representitives. Today there are 435 Representitives. Membership has been allowed to grow with new states and additional population. The time has come for it to grow again.

The current House was set at 435 members by the Reapportionment Act of 1929. It did not require a constitutional amendment, only a majority vote in both houses and the signature of the President.

Ninety-Five years have past, we have new states, the population has almost tripled yet the House still has 435 members. One of the limitations in 1929 was the physical size of the House Chamber. Since then Congress has spent trillions and trillions of dollars on the goverment and billions on offices for house members, but it can't figure a way to increase the seating in the House chamber. Maybe it's time to put some effort into it.

Wyoming (basically a red state) and Vermont (basically a blue state) are absolutely entitled to a voting member of the House. Yet the populations of these states is dwarfed by Texas (basically a red state) and California (basically a blue state). Aren't residents of states, who's governments actions have allowed them to grow into economic giants, able to compete economically with any nation in the world entitled to the similar levels of representation in the House of Representitives. The House was designed to be representitive of the population, whereas the Senate is representitive of the states.

Wyoming has one Representitive for a population of 585000. Vermont one for 650000. California has one Representitive for each 750000 residents. Texas has one for each 790000. That is a huge discrepancy. It gives the less populus states far greater relative representation.

Additional members should be able to create more representitive majorities and coalitions. With broader representation, a better Congress should result. It was opined in the Washington Post this week that the current Congress is the worst of all time. Let's strive for the best of all time. Grow the House of Representitives