The United States Pirate Party has come out in support of a proposal this month that seeks to expand the size of the U.S. House of Representatives by eliminating the statutory cap that currently limits the chamber to 435 members.
The Pirate National Committee voted unanimously during its March 8 meeting to support #ProjectNoCap, an initiative advocating for the removal of the current limit. The effort is being promoted by content creator Matt Beat, best known through his alias “Mr. Beat,” who has publicly advocated for expanding the chamber so that the number of representatives can grow alongside the country’s population and better reflect it.
The current size of the House was established by the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, which effectively capped the chamber at 435 voting members while maintaining periodic reapportionment of seats among the states based on population changes recorded in the census. As the cap is not explicitly defined in the United States Constitution, Congress can change it through legislation.
“Instead of growing with the population as the House of Representatives was meant to, it was capped off and led to what we now have: a bloated system filled with career politicians who don’t respond to your emails or take you seriously” the party said in a statement following the meeting. “The branch that was supposed to be most representative of the people in a district is currently not successful in that venture.”
In its statement, the Pirate Party argued that uncapping the House would allow for smaller congressional districts and thus more “intimate” representation for voters. It suggested that an expanded chamber could also have the added benefit of lowering ballot access barriers for independent candidates and minor parties by reducing signature requirements tied to district population sizes.
The party further argued that increasing the number of districts would dilute the influence of large campaign contributions by forcing political spending across multiple districts at once. “No more will there be endless funds directed for or major party candidates,” the party added, “in theory, it should spread it so far thin that it should effectively help to remove big money from politics.”
The party gave full credit to Beat, who it said has been contacting his representative, Tracey Mann of Kansas, in an attempt to get him to support the effort or introduce legislation related to it. While the party said Beat has not received a detailed response beyond a general acknowledgment from the congressional office, it encouraged supporters to contact their own representatives and provided a sample email template prepared by Beat that individuals can use to advocate for the idea.
By the way, I just used the pattern from the Congressional Apportionment Amendment; and based on the latest Census the average district should represent ~190k.
This is also approximately 1/3 the population of Wyoming. Using a Wyoming/3 rule, we would have 1732 Representatives with a median district of 191,224 people.
California 206
Texas 152
Florida 112
New York 105
Pennsylvania 68
Illinois 67
Ohio 62
Georgia 56
North Carolina 55
Michigan 53
New Jersey 49
Virginia 45
Washington 40
Massachusetts 37
Arizona 37
Tennessee 36
Indiana 36
Missouri 32
Maryland 32
Wisconsin 31
Minnesota 30
Colorado 30
South Carolina 27
Alabama 26
Kentucky 24
Louisiana 24
Oklahoma 21
Oregon 22
Connecticut 19
Iowa 17
Utah 17
Kansas 16
Mississippi 16
Arkansas 16
Nevada 16
Nebraska 10
West Virginia 10
Idaho 10
New Mexico 11
New Hampshire 7
Hawaii 8
Delaware 5
Maine 7
South Dakota 5
Montana 6
Rhode Island 6
Vermont 4
Alaska 4
North Dakota 4
Wyoming 3
I mean, if we’re discussing uprooting the entire U.S. government to relocate elsewhere, let’s just relocate the three branches:
* Move the U.S. Congress to Metro St. Louis.
* Move the U.S. Supreme Court to a state where the political environment isn’t too lopsided one way or the other.
* Keep the White House in D.C., but make it optional to stay in. Keep all major Cabinet members in D.C., make everyone else work remotely. If they have shitty internet, that’s their own damn problem.
Cases in point on the last bullet point:
Both Bushes spent more time in Texas and Florida than they did in D.C.
Bill Clinton spent more time in Arkansas and Illinois than he did in D.C.
Barack Obama spent more time in Illinois, South Carolina, and California than he did in D.C.
And well, Trump spends more time in Mar-A-Lago, Jerusalem, and Moscow than he does in D.C.
I wish there was an edit button here. “the fund?” should be “they fund?” in my last comment.
@Darryl W Perry… I certainly agree, I am just saying it’ll take tax payer money (albeit a relatively small amount) to accomplish. Is that a better investment than 99% of the stuff the fund? Of course.
Honestly, I personally favor completely moving the capital, to an area within less than 100 km (I prefer metric) of the population center of the country; that would put it in Missouri. Make D.C. a historic city and give it back to Maryland to manage. If it stays in D.C. the Senate could work in the “Old Senate Chamber” and the current Senate Chamber could be re-constructed, to fit a larger House. Then the House moves in there and the Senate takes the current House Chamber.
“major construction projects would be necessary” is not a good argument against having a more representative legislature
Use either the Wyoming rule (574 seats), or my preference, the cubed root method (699 seats; I also personally favor giving each state a minimum of 3 seats so proportional representation can be implement, so I would add another 150 seats for a total of 849).
The main downside to either of these, is I believe the House chambers can’t support more than about 450 physical seats or so, major construction projects would be necessary.
I guess it’s one thing to add districts based on the territories – District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico (of which PR’s representative is acting as a Resident Commissioner). I find it incredibly insane that they can work on committees, but just cannot vote on the House floor. Six seats to bump it up to 461.
That’s all fine and good, but let’s be realistic: They’re already overpaid bureaucrats with no voting rights in the House. They’ll still be overpaid bureaucrats if they ever receive voting rights in the House.