Voting Twice in the Midterm Elections

[Ten oz]

13 hours ago, iNow said:

To be sure, I most definitely agree with you on the need for a national standard on how Senate seats get filled. 

At over 700,000 the average house district today is more populated than was the most populated State in the country when the Constitution was ratified. Not only were the number of people being represented far less but govt itself was very different. Soc Sec, Medicare, DOD, the Federal Reserve, FDA, EPA, the Education Department, DOT, FAA, NASA, NOAA, and etc, etc, etc, etc, etc did not exist. The bureaucracy being overseen today is far larger, more complex, and impacts everyone in the country regardless of which state they live in.

There are currently more individual federal agencies than there are Senators. Number of Fed employees and contractors is at 10 million people. Federal budget of nearly 4 trillion. There are just 535 members of Congress to oversee it all. By contrast the UK has 1/5 the population of the U.S. and their Parliament structure has over 1400 seats between MPs and Lords. Canada has 1/10 the population of the U.S. and their structure has 443 members between MPs and senators. 

Expanding the number of seats is critical in my opinion. The process has become too incestuous. Individual members sit on committees and subcommittees numbering into the teens and each committee has several lobbyist. Those lobbyist are unelected and basically write policy. Additionally the limited seats prevents the rise of more independent parties. If Congress were larger it would be harder for party whips to control individuals along party lines.