The Federal government has very limited powers according to the constitution… NONE of the work they currently perform falls within these powers! No matter how noble you think National heathcare is or saving a bank or whatever, it simply is not the federal governments role according to the constitution. So our representatives are walking all over the document of our land with impunity.

Also note the sense of Washington’s comment: he was worried that 1:40,000 would distance the Representatives from the voters too much. So clearly the intent is to minimize the number of voters per Representative, not the number of Representatives per voter.

OK, got it….that pesky 17th century phrasing. Thanks.

“the Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand”.

It’s not a floor, but a ceiling – a cap on the number of Representatives for any given level of population. For instance, if the U.S. has 300,000 people, there can be at most 10 Representatives. Less than 1/30,000 would be permitted.

Today, there are 435 Representatives for the 280.9M people recorded in the 2000 Census as residing in the 50 states: 1 for every 645,633 people. 1/645,633 is less than 1/30,000.

That limit has never been exceeded, so there is no question of legality.

And no, electronic meetings are no answer. If every member has the right to speak, to submit bills or propose amendments, or to make motions – and there are 10,000 of them – then orderly proceedings would be impossible, no matter how the members communicate.

What may be needed is some entirely different structure. But what that could be, I have no idea, and AFAIK neither does anyone else.

Alas, part of the problem is that there isn’t sufficient rage about an out of control federal government, and at least partly because much of the population doesn’t read anything deeper than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. I’m sort of tempted to write a piece for PajamasMedia comparing the worst, darkest fears of the Antifederalists for what the new government might become, and what it actually became. The Antifederalists were not sufficiently paranoid! (I’m pleased to report that one of my relatives was an Antifederalist delegate to the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention–although he said nothing that was recorded.)

What isn’t clear is what was the legal justification for exceeding the Constitutional mandate of one representative per 30,000 people? I’ve never understood its legality.

Keeping the power decentralized is better than attempting to reduce the power: attempts to reduce the power are short-lived at best (remember the Contract for America?). The best we can hope for is confusion to our enemies.

I agree but I thought the Constitution already does that, and the government runs roughshod over it with impunity. With Congresscritters skirting the already-established limits on powers and the majority of citizens apathetic to it, how can we further restrain them? With a feckless executive (last how many administrations?) Congress is a fox in the henhouse. How do we divest them of all the powers they’ve appropriated? Your solution (the right one, I concur) requires state governments to stand against federal intrusion, but none have proven willing to do so. As long as the federal government holds out the carrot of funding states will toe the line. The first state to take a stand will see its entire government replaced within two cycles, and good luck getting elected officials to advocate their own demise. We need to cut (or even eliminate) federal taxes first. That by itself would limit Congressional power, if they weren’t able to simply vote for deeper debt, that is.