[toyg]

But party lines are set by leaders who are themselves representatives. If they had to interface with fewer constituents, they'd engage with them in a different way, probably listening more; having higher and higher numbers of constituents to care for inevitably shifts representatives into "cattle-herding" territory, setting them further apart than they already are.

Also, the more constituents, the more difficult it is for third-party candidates to run and meaningfully affect the debate.

In the end, continent-sized superpower government is really hard. Even in the "good old days", you often ended up with people like Nixon.

[thmsths]

I appreciate your point about the cattle herding. But if we were to increase the numbers of Reps to stay in line with population growth we would need close to 1200 of them. Which in my opinion introduces more issues than it solves.

[maxwell]

What issues?