The original Constitution provided for two houses of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The New Constitution continues this experiment of the original plan but, I will admit, with reservation.
One alternative to consider instead of the two houses of Congress would be a parliamentary plan, but I think, with the modifications to process and responsibility in this New Constitution, we ought to give the two house experiment at least another fifty years before making a decision to change.
An argument against the two house experiment is that the composition of the Senate actually pushes our government away from a democracy. Whereas the House Of Representatives is based on a ratio of the population which theoretically has its power from the population (people), the Senate bases its power on the States making it “undemocratic.” The original intent of this method of organization was to help the small states retain an equal portion of the power by having two Senators from each state no matter what the states geographical or population size. Remember, back at the time the original Constitution was written, “state” meant “nation”; each nation/state wanted to retain some semblance of independence and power. This compromise of a population based House and State based Senate was what worked for them.
A counter argument on the House Of Representatives being democratic is that in 1911 Congress passed Public Law 62-5 which set the number of members of the House Of Representatives at 435. In the days the original Constitution was written, it was felt that one Representative for about 30,000 constituents was appropriate. With the philosophy that the closer the representative is to the people they represent, the more accountable the representative is, the designers of our government were comfortable with the 1:30,000 ratio. Today, with the 435 member maximum, the ratio is 1:708,000…23 times the number of constituents to representatives! This huge ratio pretty much dilutes the democracy point.
Is it time to remove the maximum of 435 members in the House Of Representatives and go to a virtual House Of Representatives with each representative officed in their own districts and meeting/voting electronically? Since the maximum was set by Public Law, it can be changed without an amendment to the Constitution, but should it be stated in the New Constitution?
Next: Section 1.2 – Number and Election of Representatives
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