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Jonathan Bernstein

How to Make the House More Representative

Sorry, reformers — adding members won’t work. Quadrupling staff budgets just might.

It’s already pretty big.

It’s already pretty big.

Photographer: Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images

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Reformers are once again looking at the possibility of increasing the size of the House of Representatives. The big virtue of this reform is that it could be accomplished by simple legislation, rather than needing a constitutional amendment, and that it isn’t really a subject of partisan bickering right now, which means it at least appears to be plausible that it could happen.