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Comment by nathanaldensr | Hacker News Reader

The United States has gone back and forth between the two dominant parties for almost its entire history. Can we definitively say things have gotten objectively better? If not, then what does voting actually do?

If I could run for representative and have a decent chance at winning, maybe I would run. Unfortunately, I wouldn't stand a chance against better-funded, entrenched interests with unlimited money. Why should I bother, so I and my family can be destroyed publicly for the sake of winning?

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There's a solution I like: ratify the original First Amendment, which would have greatly reduced the number of constituents per representative, which would a) have made representatives more responsive to their constituents, and b) made it harder for wealthy special-interest groups to capture every election for the House of Representatives. It was originally understood as correcting an inaccurate wording in the Constitution.

Here's the text:

> After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.

For reference, right now each representative is supposed somehow to act on behalf of almost two thirds of a million people! How can one person vote on behalf of so many, who are inevitably drawn from a mix of rural, urban, poor, wealthy, and every other varied circumstance of life? How much can any one person feel represented, or hope to influence who represents them or how?

How would having that amendment change a single thing today? Don't we currently happen to be compliant with it even though it isn't in force? In particular, note that it ends with "nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons", not "less than" like the preceding clauses did.

No, it puts the minimum number of representatives at about 6000, one per 50,000 people, where right now there are 435, one per about 650,000. That would be a significant change, in my eyes.

No, it puts the maximum number at about 6000.

I see that now. Interesting. Well, I'm wrong on that text — but I still think the idea, as I had previously understood it, is a good one, and we have the technology to make a 6000-person House of Representatives workable.

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