The Missing Amendment
The very first article proposed for the Bill of Rights outlawed oligarchy and has been waiting, partially ratified, since 1789.
Finishing the Constitution✔
Completing what the Founding Fathers started would:
- expand the House of Representatives to ~6771 from the current 435 rich, corrupt, dusty, out-of-touch incumbents. 1 2 3
- improve multiple sources of electoral distortion,
- diminish party duopoly,
- decrease big money in politics,
- decrease government spending, and
- restore our democratic republic.
The United States has the third lowest government representation in the world, and it shows. 4
George Washington personally wanted us to have at least 15x more reps than we have now!♥
Article the First
After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.5
The Congressional Apportionment Amendment outlined:
- one representative per 30,000 people until there are 100 representatives;
- one per 40,000 until there are 200;
- then a permanent floor of one representative for every 50,000 citizens, with no upper limit.
What Would George Washington Do?
On the final day of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, after presiding in silence on every other topic, Washington rose to endorse a ratio of 1 representative for every 30,000 people. There was no opposition. Historians record it as the only time Washington voiced an opinion on any substantive issue debated at the convention.6
James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 55, "that so small a number of representatives will be an unsafe depositary of the public interests; secondly, that they will not possess a proper knowledge of the local circumstances of their numerous constituents; thirdly, that they will be taken from that class of citizens which will sympathize least with the feelings of the mass of the people, and be most likely to aim at a permanent elevation of the few on the depression of the many; fourthly, that defective as the number will be in the first instance, it will be more and more disproportionate, by the increase of the people, and the obstacles which will prevent a correspondent increase of the representatives." Madison believed the House would grow, but he wrote nothing anticipating a permanent cap.
A prominent Anti-Federalist, Melancton Smith, made the case plainly: "We certainly ought to fix, in the Constitution, those things which are essential to liberty. If anything falls under this description, it is the number of the legislature." 7 Without a constitutional floor on House size, Smith and others argued, nothing would stop Congress from letting districts expand until ordinary citizens could no longer expect their voices to be heard.
The Founders put one amendment above all others. Higher than the freedom of speech, religion, the right to bear arms and due process.
It was the first item on the list: the guarantee that government could never shrivel to such a wrinkled elite that it would stop reflecting the will of the people. It was a protection against the gradual institution of tyranny and the context for all other rights.
Every major founding voice understood it to be an essential priority. And it only fell one state short of becoming the first amendment to the US Constitution.
It Almost Passed in 1792!
Congress approved Article the First on September 25, 1789, alongside the rest of what became the Bill of Rights.8 Ratification required eleven states, 3/4 of the fourteen then in the Union. Ten states ratified!
Between 1789 and 1791: New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Vermont all ratified.9 Connecticut's two legislative chambers deadlocked.10
In June 1792, Kentucky joined the Union as the sixteenth state, raising the required threshold from eleven to twelve. Kentucky ratified, but the new count stayed one short.
The amendment has never been withdrawn or formally rescinded, the vote is still open though no states have ratified since.11 It remains pending, widely forgotten.
Benefits of Ratification
Electoral Distortion
- Small districts are harder to gerrymander than large ones. 4 12
- Restore vote equality; One Person, One Vote.
- Current inequality in congressional district sizes across state lines approaches 82%, meaning some voters carry nearly twice the political weight of others. 13
Money
- Average people could participate in a congressional race;
- the cost to campaign in a 50,000-person district would be a fraction of current ~700,000-person districts.
- Candidates across the political spectrum could afford to run, diminishing the artificial duopoly of political parties. 14
- Candidates could canvass on foot and local reputation could re-take its deserved priority over multi-million-dollar television campaigns.
- the cost to campaign in a 50,000-person district would be a fraction of current ~700,000-person districts.
- Spread across 6,700+ competitive races instead of 435, lobbying, large donations, and special interest groups would be less effective. 15
Accountability
- A single representative for 700,000+ constituents cannot meaningfully be aware of, let alone respond to constituent concerns. 16
- More representatives would reduce government spending. 17
- Representatives cannot keep up with their responsibilities; 439 members currently hold 2,608 committee assignments, averaging six each, with some members on twelve. 18
- In fact, Congress depends on 9,034 un-elected staffers to acomplish their work, a number which would not be so necessary if we replaced staffers with more actual representatives. 19
- The electoral college would more accurately reflect the popular vote. 20
Where We Stand
The 27th Amendment, prohibiting Congress from giving itself a mid-term pay raise, similarly sat dormant for 203 years before ratifying in 1992.21 It started with only seven ratifications compared to our eleven before accumulating the same requisite 38, with $6,000 and a letter-writing campaign.22
Only 27 states to go. We are already more than 25% there!
Check out the Take Action page. Consider telling your friends there is hope for significant change in closer reach than they thought. Write letters to your state politicians, give them a ring, paint some nice signs for them to read when they arrive at work; it is very likely they work for a state that did not exist when the Constitution was written. If you feel like it, subscribe below for updates on the ratification effort. This page and the Open Research page are open to edits via GitHub.
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The 27th Amendment, ratified May 7, 1992. Originally proposed September 25, 1789 as part of the same package of twelve amendments as Article the First. See National Archives, "The 27th Amendment."
David Speiser, "Last Rights," Astral Codex Ten, March 11, 2026. Recomended reading.
Article the First of the proposed Bill of Rights, approved by Congress September 25, 1789. Text from the Congressional Apportionment Amendment, Wikipedia.
At 335 million people divided by 50,000 per the amendment's third tier: 6,700 representatives minimum. See also Speiser (2026), estimating 6,641 based on 2020 census figures.
Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, 46 Stat. 26 (June 18, 1929). See United States congressional apportionment, Wikipedia. Congress actively thwarted appropriate representation with the 1929 Act in opposition to the intentions of the Founding Fathers and a functioning republic. After the 1920 census documented a massive population shift toward cities, rural-dominated Congresses refused to reapportion for a decade, in direct violation of the constitutional mandate to reapportion after each census. When they finally acted, the result was the 1929 Act: a statute capping the House at 435 members, with no constitutional amendment, no referendum, and no public mechanism for challenge. The Republic continues to weep. That cap has held for 96 years while the population has more than tripled. The 435-member cap is not in the Constitution. It is a statute Congress passed about itself. An ordinary act of legislation can change it; a ratified constitutional amendment supersedes it entirely. Most people assume the size of the House is a founding-era fixture when in fact it approaches unconstitutionality.
James Madison, Notes on the Constitutional Convention, September 17, 1787. Gorham's motion to lower the ratio from 40,000 to 30,000, endorsed by Washington, was agreed to unanimously without debate.
James Madison, Federalist No. 55, February 13, 1788.
Melancton Smith, speech at the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788. Excerpted from Eliiot, Jonathan, "The debates in the several state conventions on the adoption of the federal Constitution, as recommended by the general convention at Philadelphia, in 1787.," Archive.org,1836.
Both chambers approved all twelve proposed amendments on September 25, 1789. See "Congressional Apportionment Amendment," Wikipedia.
Ratification dates vary slightly by source. This list follows the Congressional Apportionment Amendment Wikipedia article, which sources National Archives records.
Justin Haskins, "Did This New Jersey Lawyer Discover a Lost Constitutional Amendment?" The Blaze, November 2, 2015. Eugene LaVergne, a New Jersey attorney, argued in a federal lawsuit that both of Connecticut's chambers did in fact ratify, but that its records had been lost in archives rather than reflecting a genuine failure to act. Federal courts rejected the case. Apparently a third party confirmed his findings?. This footnote now up for nomination for the Greatest "Footnote in History" in the History of Footnotes prize (GFHHF).
"Small districts eliminate the need for candidates to be funded by big money," Thirty-Thousand.org" Campaigns in 760,000-person districts averaged $4.3 million in 2020; incumbents raised 6.6× more than challengers.
"Overcome the Incumbency Advantage," Thirty-Thousand.org" House members win reelection at a 94% rate despite single-digit congressional approval ratings; the primary structural cause is district size averaging 760,000 people, which makes mounting a credible challenge prohibitively expensive. Reducing districts to 50,000 people would lower campaign costs enough that ordinary citizens could compete, achieving the practical effects of term limits without a constitutional amendment and without barring voters from reelecting representatives they actually want.
"End Political Duopoly," Thirty-Thousand.org Capital-intensive campaigns in 760,000-person districts force candidates to rely on party infrastructure and funding, making party affiliation a prerequisite for viability.
"Establish Citizen Equality Nationwide," Thirty-Thousand.org The House of Representatives is in violation of the Supreme Court's principle of One Person, One Vote.
"Small congressional districts will lead to a smaller government,"Thirty-Thousand.org Published research shows a positive correlation between constituency size and government spending: larger districts enable logrolling and omnibus bills completely distinct from actual citizen's demands. Adding ~6,500 Representatives would cost an estimated $1.46 billion annually, less than 0.022% of 2020 federal expenditures, while even a 1% reduction in spending from improved oversight would save more than ten times that amount.
See Effect on the Electoral College for some digital napkin math. Essentially a larger House would dilute the Senate bonus, but not remove it entirely.
At least two Supreme Court rulings appear to clearly support ratification despite long delay. See Side-effects of the 27th Amendment Ratification.
"Expand the House You Cowards," Heaney, James "We would actually need far less House staff. So next time somebody tells ya, 'The last thing Washington needs is more politicians!' remind them that Washington already has 'all these politicians.' They just aren’t elected. The people we elected to do the work could actually do the work."