House Expansion Commission Act

Key Points

• This bill would create a special group of 13 experts to study whether the House of Representatives should have more members. Since 1929, the number of representatives has been stuck at 435, even though the U.S. population has tripled since then.
• The commission will look at how adding more members could help representatives better serve their communities. Currently, each member represents about 800,000 people, which is a much larger group than representatives had to manage in the past.
• The group will investigate the costs and logistics of an expansion, such as where new members would sit, how they would vote, and how much it would cost to hire more staff and build more offices in the Capitol.
• The commission must finish its study and give a report to the President and Congress within two years. This report will include specific plans for how to grow the House and solve any practical problems that might come with it.
• The 13 members of the commission will be chosen by leaders from both parties in the House and Senate. To keep the study neutral, the members cannot be current politicians, but they must be experts in things like government, math, or statistics.