Population represented by each member of Congress on average in the USA

[CreekDog]

in the USA:
318 million people represented by 435 members of congress: approximately 731,000 per member of Congress.

in Canada:
35 million people, 308 members of the lower house: 113,000 people per member.
in the United Kingdom:
64 million people, 650 members of the lower house: 98,000 people per member.
in France:
67 million people, 577 members of the lower house: 116,000 people per member.
in Germany:
81 million people, 631 members of the lower house: 128,000 people per member.
in Australia:
23 million people, 150 members of the lower house: 150,000 people per member.
in Japan:
127 million people, 480 members of the lower house: 264,000 people per member.
in Brazil:
201 million people, 513 members of the lower house: 391,000 people per member.
in Argentia:
42 million people, 257 members of the lower house: 163,000 people per member.
in South Korea:
50 million people, 300 members of the unicameral legislature: 166,000 people per member.

[yeoman6987]

1. I know that sounds bad

BUT, do we really want more politicians in Washington? I would rather increase the state and local politicians…..as long as they are Democrats of course.

[FarCenter]

2. The IQ of a group is approximately 100 / log N, where N is the number of members

So the IQ of the House is already down to 38.

House membership is also greater than Dunbar's Number, which accounts for much of its dysfunction.

[Make7]

3. I think you forgot to multiply by 0.01%. ( n/t )

[CreekDog]

4. there's no percentage in any of my numbers

why the confusion?

[Make7]

7. I'm saying Congress represents the 0.01% (i.e. the wealthy). n/t

[CreekDog]

9. oh lol

[Nye Bevan]

5. So are you arguing that the US should have 3245 members of Congress,

to bring us into line with the UK?

Or 2814 members of Congress to bring us into line with Canada?

[CreekDog]

6. how about producing the quote where i said that

[Nye Bevan]

11. Well, is this simply a random list of countries with the populations of their legislative districts,

or were you trying to make some kind of point with this post? The implication seemed to be that since the countries that you picked other than the US have much smaller district populations, you were suggesting that the districts in the US have too large a population. But it just occurred to me that you could be suggesting that the rest of the world has got it wrong and that they should have larger legislative districts. Or perhaps it's just a random observation with no real point to it?

[Hippo_Tron]

8. No, but diluting it to somewhere in the 600-700 range wouldn't hurt

Also, take away the Senate's legislative powers like they've done basically everywhere else.

[mathematic]

10. A list that includes the 2nd largest democracy but not the 1st.

That's called "cherry picking".

[pscot]

14. The largest democracy

has approximately 1 rep for every 1.9 million people.

[hfojvt]

12. you could also compare it to our past

which has been done before here, by Babylon Sister IIRC. Congress went up to 435 members sometime before 1930, when the US population was ...

[RobertEarl]

13. Ridiculous numbers

No wonder this country has such bad representation.

There is no way one person can even come close to accurately represent 731,000 citizens.

And there is no reason why most of an expanded congress of 1,000 members could not do their work via the internet.