	House Size As Cube Root of Population In Principles of constitutional design By Donald S. Lutz we find our rationale for setting the size of the House to the cube root of the population. Further support is found in Predicting Party Sizes By Rein Taagepera. The chart at left is an illustration of the application of cube root to House size selection and the resulting size of electoral districts. At present the Cube Root selection in 2000 would have put the size of the House at 656 and the average electoral disrict size at 429,000. That is still too large for electoral districts but it is a significant improvement over the current size of 645,800.

House Size As Cube Root of Population

In Principles of constitutional design By Donald S. Lutz we find our rationale for setting the size of the House to the cube root of the population. Further support is found in Predicting Party Sizes By Rein Taagepera. The chart at left is an illustration of the application of cube root to House size selection and the resulting size of electoral districts. At present the Cube Root selection in 2000 would have put the size of the House at 656 and the average electoral disrict size at 429,000. That is still too large for electoral districts but it is a significant improvement over the current size of 645,800.

It is probably more important to show the relationship between the historical size of the House and the cube root. So we have chosen the "No-Loss" (of seats to any state) chart for a comparison because it is historically accurate for all years prior to 1921 and is a more rational reflection of what should have been since that time: In 1870 the cube root would have produce a House 15% larger than the historical house. In the subsequent reapportionment acts the differences were 13%, 11%, 9%, and in 1911 6%. But the bill out of the House in 1921 would have set the size of the house to 2% more than the cube root. For those who seek the smallest rational house size it would appear that 1921 would have been a very good time to switch over to using the cube root to determine the size of the House.

	It is difficult to say what the size of the House in 1870 might have been had the Whigs not reduced the size to 235 in 1840. For that year the House had determined a size of 242 members but the Senate forced the smaller size. The size of the House in 1830 was set by the congress at 240 while the cube root would have selected 229. The cube root would have created a House of 252 in 1940.

But the use of cube root during the mid 1800's was the sort of thing that Madison and others warned about in saying that Constitutionally setting the size by some arithmetic formula is an error. The mid 1800's were a tumultuous time in American reality and to tie the hands of government during the period would not have been a good idea. Magic formulas do not anticipate civil wars. Nor do we seek any constitutional solution to the size of the House now. We merely want some rationality to be employed in setting the size of the House in a new reapportionment act. This law sets the size for the next decade and thus the size of the electoral districts. At the end of that time there will be a new act that will hopefully also be rational. And this decennial reapportionment is constitutionally mandated.