The time to expand the House of Representatives is so far in the past that it's absurd at this point. In this thread we will discuss why expanding the House needs to happen, effects expanding would have both real and imagined, and ridicule those opposed to the idea. What won't happen is anyone giving a good and persuasive reason why we shouldn't expand the House. Even you, Mr. Lobbyist who posts on surly (no callouts!).
A brief summary of the ironclad reasons it should be expanded:
1. The Constitution mentions a maximum ratio of one Representative for every 30,000 citizens. Right now it's over 750,000. So all you ORIGINAL INTENT! and FOUNDING FATHERS! fans should be in favor.
2. In case you haven't noticed, the population of the United States has grown quite large. Also, the ol' USA still cranks out a decent economy. What happens when a population grows really large and keeps generating money on a per capita basis while the number of Representatives stays the same? The amount of money per Representative grows exponentially. And what happens when the amount of money per Representative grows exponentially? The ability to buy enough votes to affect policy gets exponentially easier. Higher population + static number of legislators = easier corruptibility. In real dollars the biggest companies today have somewhere on the order of 6 times as much cash on hand as the biggest companies (like General Motors) had in 1950. And yet they have the same number of Representatives to "lobby" as the companies in 1950 had. Expanding the House would lower corruption because math.
3. But Huck, the building is only so big! You may have heard of Zoom or other online conference services. The Constitution says that Congress must assemble once per year, so let's have an argument about the various definitions of assemble. I say that gathering online meets the definition in the 21st century. Not only that, but make lobbyists fly all over the country to try to buy votes instead of putting all the fish in a single barrel for them.
4. More Representatives means more responsiveness to local constituents. Right now a Republican Representative in Alabama cares more about what Republicans in California want than Democrats in Alabama. Increase the number (and lower the ratio) so that Representatives actually know a much higher percentage of the people they represent.
Effects
1. More constituent service
2. Less corruption
3. Electoral college not really affected
Right now some of you are saying "wait, what?" about #3 above. Well, it's true. You can run the analysis on your own if you like but expanding the House would not materially affect Presidential election results. Now sure this sucks if you hate the Electoral College, but it's good news if you want to get Republicans on board with expanding the House like I do.
If you expand the House to 1500 Representatives, Biden would have won this election 913-692 (Give DC 5 electoral votes to match the smallest States). That's 56.9% of the electors. In reality, Biden won 306-232 which is, you guessed it, 56.9% of the electors. Flipping Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada would make this year's election 269-269. Doing it with a House size of 1500 would make it 804-801 in favor of Trump. If you want to fix the electoral college then you need to fix the way the States divvy up their electors.