(Source: MIRS.news, Published 07/11/2024) Rep. Andrew Fink (R-Osseo), also a candidate in the running for state Supreme Court, wants U.S. House districts sized down to no more than 50,000 residents per district.  

His HJR T would ratify a federal constitutional amendment that would drop Michigan’s Congressional representatives from over 750,000 residents they currently serve, which Fink said would make the U.S. House more representative and less bureaucratic. 

By comparison, each of the 110 members in the Michigan House represents approximately 77,000 to 91,000 residents.  

Prior to 1913, Congress increased the size of the House every 10 years to coordinate with the census, and as the country’s population grew, so did the House. Since then, the House has remained fixed at 435 members, Fink said, except for some small deviations.  

To change this, Fink is proposing Michigan take the lead in ratifying the Congressional Apportionment Amendment, one of the 12 original proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution that was drafted in 1789 by James Madison, but not ratified by the states.  

Because there was no time limit set for its ratification, the amendment is technically still pending before the states. As of 2024, it is one of six un-ratified constitutional amendments.  

If adopted, it would establish a formula for determining the size of Congress based on each census.  

Fink’s resolution would put Michigan in the lead for ratifying the amendment, he said, and would ensure that the House continues to represent small constituencies even as the population grows.  

He said having so few congressional districts in Michigan has resulted in the lawmakers who represent them being far more removed from the concerns of citizens than the country’s founders ever intended, also making it nearly impossible for an outsider to break through. 

“The nature of the people’s branch has been drastically diminished,” Fink said. “The House was designed to be the body of government closest to the people, but now members of Congress pay less attention to members of their districts and spend more time on cable news trying to fundraise nationally.” 

Michael McDaniel, a Cooley Law School professor and director of homeland law, said that he believes ensuring a representative government was the intention of Madison when he first proposed the Congressional Apportionment Amendment. 

However, McDaniel said there are some definite complications that would have to be worked out.  

Decreasing the size of House districts would increase the number of members of Congress, he said, with a total closer to 1,600 members that would represent the U.S. population.   

McDaniel said that could make administering elections more complicated, and could greatly increase the difficulty of achieving consensus, which can already be troublesome for the chamber with 435 members.  

Fink said a larger body of representatives could also ensure that the only lobbying efforts to succeed would be those broadly supported by the people.  

“Special interest groups inordinately influence policy in D.C. because there are only a handful of people in the House they need to persuade,” he said.  

The joint resolution was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.