Lawsuit seeks to increase the number of members in the U.S. House of Representatives

The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog has an interesting piece (click here) about a federal lawsuit filed earlier this week that seeks an order that the U.S. House of Representatives increase its size, from 435 members to roughly double that number. "On Thursday, a group called Apportionment.us filed suit in federal district court for the Northern District of Mississippi on behalf of five people, one resident from each of the following states: Montana, Delaware, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Utah. The quintet’s complaint: that their votes carry far less weight in the House of Representatives than do those from residents of other states, like Rhode Island and Iowa. . . .The group alleges this is the case because the population variance between the most under-represented congressional district in the nation and most over-represented district exceeds 80%. For example, according to the complaint, Montana has one representative for every approximately 905,000 people while its neighbor to the south, Wyoming, has one representative for approximately every 495,000 people."

Tags: Federal Constitutional Law, United States Congress