Why 435?
How shrinking representation turned American politics into a constant fight.
I think most of us, at some point in our lives, have been in a relationship that is struggling or maybe even fails. Typically, it starts with a problem that’s ignored. It festers. Resentment builds. Communication breaks down. And eventually, everything becomes a battle: who’s right, who’s wrong.
Each party draws their lines. And with every event comes an argument, and then the escalation starts. Somebody starts yelling, so the other person starts yelling. Somebody starts saying mean things, the other person says meaner things. The escalation continues until… maybe it gets physical, maybe somebody walks away, or maybe somebody has a moment of reflection.
It’s a choice we make.
A moment where, instead of thinking about what the other person did wrong, we think about what we did, how we can react, and what we can do. And in that moment of reflection, that conciliation, that small act of humility toward the person we’ve been battling, the temperature starts to go down. The mean words go away. Yelling gets softer until it’s gone. And now you can talk again, honestly. Maybe you say the things that you’ve been meaning to say but never did. Maybe you say the same thing that you’ve always said, but this time, for the first time in a long time, it was heard.
I believe uncapping the House is possible because the government is nothing more than a relationship between the people who govern and the people who are governed. And I believe people are good. I believe people are willing to reflect instead of continuing to escalate.
It’s necessary because when one representative is expected to speak for nearly 750,000 people, politics stops being a conversation and becomes a war.
I have been speaking with No Cap Fund volunteers a lot lately. And what they tell me should give us all hope. Many have only recently heard about uncapping the House, and they can’t stop thinking or talking about it. They share how frustrated they are by all the fighting and by the direction of the country. And they are making a choice to reflect on what they can do, and they are choosing to do something productive. They are done with the fighting. One volunteer told me that he decided to sign up because it seemed like the best option, saying, Uncapping the House is something that can actually get done. It fixes something that doesn’t really make sense. It’s about the most nonpartisan issue out there. And it’s in our DNA. No taxation without representation.
I believe uncapping the House is possible because it just makes sense. Do we really want to continue to escalate? California gerrymanders, so Texas gerrymanders, so Virginia gerrymanders. Everybody gerrymanders until when? When does it stop? We have to stop Donald Trump. We have to stop JD Vance. We have to stop the progressive socialist democrats. Everything is an escalation until we take a moment to reflect.
Why do we have 435 representatives in the House?
No one really knows. It’s completely arbitrary.
And when people stop and think about it for a moment, they realize something important: it doesn’t make sense. Their voice gets softer. They slow down, and they listen. That’s why I know uncapping the House is the right reform at the right time.
Because that’s what the people want. It gives them something productive to do. They want the people elected to office to do their, excuse my language, F#*king job. They want them to stop fighting like divorced parents and work it out.
We have a choice.
We can keep escalating, fighting the same battles over and over again.
Or we can do something productive.
We can fix the system.
We can uncap the House.
Peace, Love, and Representation,
Jeff Mayhugh,
President, No Cap Fund