"We’re nearly two decades into the 21st century, so why is America still operating with a House of Representatives built for the start of the 20th?"

"The House’s current size — 435 representatives — was set in 1911, when there were fewer than one-third as many people living in the United States as there are now. At the time, each member of Congress represented an average of about 200,000 people. In 2018, that number is almost 750,000.... To understand the implications of a larger House, we enlisted software developer Kevin Baas and his Auto-Redistrict program to draw 593 new congressional districts for the entire country... Then we used historical partisan scores to determine which party would win each district... [I]t would create a more competitive landscape, with 25 percent of seats qualifying as toss-ups, compared to just 10 percent today.... There’s no constitutional basis for a membership of 435; it’s arbitrary, and it could be undone by Congress tomorrow."

Says the Editorial Board of the NYT.