Comments on economics, mystery fiction, drama, and art.

Friday, June 09, 2017

"Representative" Government in the United States

I've wondered about this for a while, and the election in the UK finally stimulated me to do the math.  The 5 most populous countries in western Europe are France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, with a total population of about 316 million.  The US has a population of about 320 million.  So about the same population base.

In the national parliaments of the European countries, each parliamentary member represents, on average, about 112,000 people (ranging from a high of 131,000 in Spain (46.1 million people, 350 MP) to a low of 95,000 (Italy: 59.8 million people, 630 MP.

In the US, the average member of the House of Representative represents about 720,000 people, or abut 6.5 times as many constituents as in Europe.  (The US would been a Congress of about 2,700 members to have the same constituents-to-representative ratio as the US does.)  Just for comparison sake, here are some numbers for the US through its history:

..............Number of
..............Members of................People per

Year......Congress................Representative
1900..........357........................213,479
1910..........391........................235,879
1920..........435........................243,727
1930..........435........................283,224
1940..........435........................303,827
1950..........435........................347.875
1960..........435........................412,237
1970..........435........................467,361
1980..........435........................520,795
1990..........435........................571,747
2000..........435........................646,947
2010..........435........................709,769

Compared to countries in Europe, this suggests that for at least 100 years US member of Congress have represented significantly larger constituencies that has been the case for European members of parliaments.  We are, in that sense, a "small government" country and always have been.  It seems to me to be impossible for any Member of Congress to know any significant number of the people s/he is representing personally--today, that would mean knowing over 7,000 in some sense personally.  It's even more difficult to believe that a member of Congress knows personally very many people who actually support the other party.


Clearly a Congress of 2,700 people is preposterous (unwieldy, impossible to manage effectively, and way too expensive).  But a Congress of 435 people, it seems to me, is increasingly creating the reality of a Congress composed of people who are literally incapable of knowing whom they represent.  (And, no, I don't have a solution.)