Downsizing Congress

The House of Representatives is currently comprised of 435 members. Much like the Electoral College, these members are a direct representation of the states population. The state of California has the most representatives with 53 while smaller populated states like Vermont have only one. The Senate is two members per state for a total of 100 senators. The annual salary for each of these 535 members of Congress is $174,000 with the exception of the Speaker of the House and the Majority and Minority leaders which receive a slightly higher salary.


In 2009, the Senate passed a bill that would add two more members to the House of Representatives - Obama is expected to sign this into law. The expansion is due to unequal representations of population. However, even with two additional seats, the representation will still be unequal. California is the highest populated state with over 36 million citizens and Wyoming is the smallest populated with just over 500 thousand. There would need to be nearly 70 representatives in California in order for each representative to cover 500 thousand citizens. That is an increase of 17 seats just in the state of California. The point is, the representation is always going to be disproportioned. Why add more seats?

It is confusing to me that during a time when jobs are being cut all across the country, the place where government has found to increase jobs is within themselves. Yes, it is only two seats. But, each representative will bring along a full staff. Why not eliminate members of the House and allocate those salaries to something more beneficial to the people. If we could cut only 35 representatives, that would still leave 400 members in the House - still four times larger than the Senate. Those 35 jobs could save the government over $6 million per year in representative's salaries alone - not to mention their expenses and the salaries of their staff.

Unfortunately, this will never happen for one reason; the size of Congress is determined by Congress. Just like they won't vote against receiving their annual pay increases, they are not going to vote to eliminate their own jobs. Millions of Americans have been laid off and let go over the last 18 months due to companies downsizing. I seriously doubt that any one of those Americans got to cast a vote to keep their job.