Apportionment Re-imagined
By Donald Wiggins, Jr.
One hundred sixty six years ago, Charles Dickens challenged the human mind in, “A Tale of Two Cities” with the opening line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
If Dickens were alive in 2025 in the United States, he might write, “It is a Republic; it is a Democracy.” This is the opening to our current evolution in geopolitics, economics, community, and politics at every jurisdictional scale and level. The United States of America is the “it”.
June 18, 2029 will mark 100 years since the 1929 Reapportionment Act was signed into law, 170 years since America capped the size of the United States House of Representatives at 435 members. Nearly a century later we stand at the precipice to a new world. However, for us to reach that world we must cross our current threshold – a threshold in which word definitions themselves are the metaphysical sandboxes for proxy battles; a threshold in which the definitions to words are agreed upon, in common language known by a collection of names, including “legislation”, “rules”, and “law”.
As we stand at this threshold to a new world—clear questions which have been buried in our collective psyche are now once more at every American’s door, questions including:
· How shall we structure our governmental bodies?
· What are those governmental bodies?
· Who selects the individuals, entities, or programs which will govern the governmental bodies created, reformed, or modernized?
Inherent in these questions, and under our current system is the heart of the governmental body, the legislative branch, the United States House of Representatives. To consider any of those questions, now is the time to consider the size of the United States House of Representatives so we may step into a new world consciously co-created collectively for the benefit of all.
Keep Cool and Think It Out
The Editors
Citizens Digest Staff
- Ruth McLatchie, Editor-in-Chief, Written Media
- Mike Gonzalez, Technical Editor, Writer
- Donald Wiggins, Chief Legal and Organizational Officer
- Daniel DeLuca, Chief Financial Officer
- Mark Harris, Operations Manager
- Elizabeth Frost, Circulation and Volunteer Manager
- Alicia Meckstroth, Contributor
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