America can’t fix redistricting until Congress gets bigger

expand the – As state legislatures redraw House districts for partisan advantage, the piece argues the country can’t meaningfully curb gerrymandering while Congress remains capped at 435 seats under the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. It lays out how Supreme Court pre

Redistricting has kept lawmakers running for months. racing to redraw House district lines in hopes of maximizing their parties’ chances of controlling Congress in 2027. And in 2026. the battles have intensified across the map—leaving millions of Americans caught in a process that. by design. can turn elections into engineering rather than choice.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been fighting to redistrict in several states as both parties try to create more red or blue seats. In states including California. Florida. Missouri. North Carolina. Ohio. Tennessee. Texas. Virginia. and Utah. House maps have been recently redrawn for overtly partisan gain. In Virginia, Democrats’ effort was struck down earlier this month by the state’s highest court.

The legal fights are not confined to one region. In Louisiana v. Callais, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that portions of the Voting Rights Act had been applied in a discriminatory manner—an outcome that opens the door to additional redistricting battles across the South. In response, Republicans in Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, and South Carolina are pushing new House maps tied to that decision. While not every effort is expected to succeed, Republicans are likely to gain at least one additional seat before November.

Democrats, meanwhile, are losing this year’s redistricting battle—but the struggle isn’t expected to end. In 2027 and 2028, Democrats are likely to continue pursuing their own partisan maps, narrowing Republicans’ current advantage.

What comes next is the part many voters are likely to feel most sharply: regardless of which party wins. the piece argues that millions of Americans will lose. House districts. it says. should be drawn to help communities choose representatives who genuinely reflect their views—not to help politicians predetermine election outcomes. When lawmakers snake district lines across vast regions and carve up cities and towns for political gain. it argues they weaken representation and deepen voter frustration with a Congress many Americans already see as broken.

The piece pushes past the usual blame on politicians alone. It contends that gerrymandering isn’t just a product of partisan greed; it’s a predictable consequence of a broken electoral system that rewards lawmakers for manipulating district lines whenever they can. To curb gerrymandering. it argues. Americans would need structural reforms that make manipulation less effective—especially those rooted in Supreme Court precedent and a nearly century-old federal law that has frozen the size of Congress.

At the center of that argument is the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. which capped the House of Representatives at 435 seats and permanently halted a long-standing practice of expanding Congress alongside America’s growing population. The Constitution, the piece notes, sets no fixed limit on the size of the House. It also points to the founders’ vision of a more localized system of representation. where relatively small districts would serve tens of thousands of people—not hundreds of thousands.

The contrast, it says, is stark. In 1800, America had 106 House districts serving a population of about 5.3 million—meaning each representative spoke for roughly 50,000 people. Today, the same 435 House seats represent roughly 341 million Americans, leaving each member of Congress responsible for about 783,000 people on average.

The structure got harder to escape in 1964, when the Supreme Court ruled in Wesberry v. Sanders that House districts within each state must contain roughly equal populations. Because America’s population is unevenly distributed and Congress remains capped at 435 seats. lawmakers are often forced to draw sprawling. awkwardly shaped districts. That. the piece says. doesn’t create gerrymandering by itself—but it makes meaningful manipulation far easier and far more politically consequential.

A bigger House, the piece argues, could weaken political power grabs in a way partisan map-drawing reforms alone may not. It calls for Congress to repeal the Permanent Apportionment Act and significantly expand the House of Representatives. Restoring the representative ratio the country had in 1800 would require adding more than 6. 000 seats. a transformation that would reshape both Congress and the nation’s political system.

Such an expansion, the piece acknowledges, might seem far-fetched at first. But it argues the effects would extend beyond simply reducing the power of gerrymandering. With smaller districts. congressional races would be more accessible. potentially opening the door to a broader and more diverse pool of candidates. Winning a House seat. it argues. would no longer require the same scale of money. reducing barriers to entry and weakening the outsized influence of lobbyists.

It also argues accountability could improve if members of Congress live closer to—and better understand—the communities they represent. While gerrymandering might not disappear. expanding the House. it says. could significantly reduce its power by making districts smaller. more localized. and harder to manipulate at scale.

Adding 6,000 seats would require major procedural reforms and technological modernization, the piece says. But for a nation with more than 340 million people. it argues those logistics aren’t insurmountable—especially since many state legislatures already operate with far lower representation ratios.

The example offered is New Hampshire, whose state House includes 400 lawmakers serving 1.4 million people, or roughly one representative for every 3,500 residents. If that level of representation can function at the state level, the piece argues, Congress can adapt as well.

For the country to meaningfully curb gerrymandering and strengthen democratic representation. the piece concludes that the focus shouldn’t be on expecting politicians to perfect a structurally flawed system. Instead, it says Americans should demand a Congress that once again reflects the representative vision the nation was founded upon.

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