"Stolen Seats"

"Instead of setting an example in obedience to the organic law of the land our Representatives in Congress have flaunted before the American people THE MOST GLARING EXAMPLE OF LAWLESSNESS ANYWHERE TO BE FOUND UNDER THE FLAG. . . .

"And the worst of it is that for this indefensible nullification of the Constitution, Congress is without a semblance of legitimate excuse. . .

"In other words, a number of Representatives in Congress today are occupying STOLEN SEATS. Their occupancy of seats to which they are no longer entitled under the Constitution makes of the Lower House of Congress AN UTTERLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL BODY. . . .

"The blame for this disgraceful proceeding by which some 13,000,000 people in this country are today denied that fair and equitable representation in Congress for which the Constitution provides, rests squarely upon the shoulders of those sordid politicians on both sides of the aisle of the House WHO HAVE HELD THEIR SEATS BY LYNCHING THE CONSTITUTION. . . .

"Certainly the country is ashamed of the present Congress and its immediate predecessors whose members, by refusing the country a reapportionment, HAVE BROKEN THEIR CONGRESSIONAL OATHS AND SHIRKED THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY. . . ."

Above are extracts from an editorial which appeared last week in Hearst newspapers. Hearst editors are more famed for capital letters than for judicial nicety, nevertheless their moral indignation in this case found reasonable support in the facts. For an entire decade (1920-30) the U. S. House of Representatives will not have been chosen according to the Constitution.

However, last week the House passed the Fenn Bill which makes it reasonably certain that after 1930 the membership of the House will be reapportioned every decade among the various States according to population and therefore according to the Constitution.

Ever since 1920, the need for reapportionment has been simply one of common honesty. Being a simple matter of honesty there was naturally no crusade in favor of it. The Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals, raucous in defense of the Eighteenth Amendment, never mentioned it. President Coolidge never mentioned it. Candidate Smith never mentioned it--because as many Democrats as Republicans had opposed it. Probably not one voter in a thousand had the least idea that the question of reapportionment existed.

The House of Representatives has now come to number 435. Nobody wants any more Congressmen--even 435 are too many to be of any use except when they are split up into a variety of committees. Each member now represents an average of about 250,000 U. S. inhabitants. But the injustice lies in the fact that whereas some Congressmen represent less than that number of males and females, some represent a great many more. Notably, Congressman Crail of the Los Angeles-Hollywood district is the sole voice of 1,250,000 people, so that a vote in Los Angeles is only one-fifth as potent as in the average district. This inequality arises from the inevitable shifts in population--one State increasing rapidly; another either decreasing or increasing slowly. Wise, the Founding Fathers foresaw this, and provided in the Constitution of 1789 that seats in the House should be redivided among the States, each ten years, according to census. But that is precisely what dishonest Congressmen have prevented since 1920.

And last week it was nearly prevented again. Especial opprobrium for opposition attached, curiously, to a Congressman named Vestal. He was neither a Roman, nor did he come from a politically virginal State. He came, indeed, from a State which during this decade seemed rapidly to be acquiring the title of Mother of All Corruption: Indiana, famed for its Governors-in-jail, for its Klan Dragons, its Watson machine. Congressman Vestal was not a leader in the anti-reapportionment fight. But he happened recently to have been appointed the Republican Whip--it being thereby his job to whip all Republicans into their seats to vote for whatever measure the Republican leaders declared good.

Now the three Republican leaders-- Longworth, Tilson, Snell--had finally been convinced by a conscientious Connecticut veteran, 72-year-old E. Hart Fenn, that honesty demanded passage of the Fenn Bill. Prudence also demanded it since, looked at nationally, reapportionment would slightly favor Republicans. But since Indiana might lose two seats by reapportionment. Congressman Vestal refused to exercise his whip on behalf of the Fenn Bill--although, in the end, he thought it prudent to vote for it himself. There were, of course, other opponents for the same reason--Iowa's Dickinson who would have liked to be U. S. Vice President and who is the righteous champion of the farmers; Mississippi's ranting Rankin--more Democrats than Republicans, since the South will be a relative loser.

But finally the talk (mostly attempts to smokescreen) ended and the Fenn Bill passed.

The Bill provides that after the census of 1930, Congress shall instruct the Department of Commerce to proceed with reapportionment in accordance with the population figures shown by that census. (Bill opponents did most of their talking against the Department of Commerce, arguing that Congress was abrogating a right, a privilege, a duty, in favor of a government department.) Based on a somewhat arithmetical system of "major fractions,"* the Fenn plans provide essentially that the 1930 population will be divided by the number of representatives (435) and the resultant figures taken as the average population of a district. Then the population of each state will be divided by this average district population to get the number of representatives. Thus, if a State in 1930, has 8,000,000 inhabitants and the average population of a district is 400,000, that State will have 20 representatives.

Changes. According to present estimates of 1930 population, the following states will gain or lose in their representation and their electoral vote:

Gainers

Arizona 1

California 6

Connecticut 1

Florida 1

Michigan 4

New Jersey 2

North Carolina 1

Ohio 3

Oklahoma 1

Texas 2

Washington 1

Losers

Alabama 1

Indiana 2

Iowa 2

Kansas 1

Kentucky 2

Louisiana 1

Maine 1

Massachusetts 1

Mississippi 2

Missouri 3

Nebraska 1

New York 1

North Dakota 1

Pennsylvania 1

Tennessee 1

Vermont 1

Virginia 1

From an Electoral College standpoint, the new distribution, with its ten added votes in California and Michigan, gives normally Republican states an electoral gain while Democrats show a slight loss, reductions in much of the Solid South balancing other increases. The reapportionment also will increase urban versus rural representation, thus possibly aiding the Wet cause.

Just as no man would ask special praise for not stealing a chicken, so no Congress man asked a moral accolade for support of the Fenn Bill. Nevertheless, there were, by comparison, some who deserved honor. Thus, honor went to the entire New York delegation for voting for the Fenn Bill even though New York will lose a seat. To the entire Pennsylvania delegation went exactly similar honor. But peculiar honor went to Connery of Massachusetts. He is his State's only Democratic Congressman from outside the City of Boston. Since his State has to lose one seat, he felt certain that the Republican Legislature would see to it that his district would disappear in the redivision of Massachusetts. He voted, nonetheless, for his own probable extinction.

Most ardent in the fight for honesty was Michigan's McLeod who foresaw that if Congress continued to flaunt the Constitution, it would be necessary to create a new party or "Constitutional Bloc" which would "prevent the waning of the Constitution through improper teaching or lack of teaching," and "purge the supreme law of matter properly only the subject for legislation."

*Major Fractions: Fenn Reapportionment will work as follows: The 1930 population will be divided by 435 (number of representatives) giving average population for each congressional district. Each state is granted one representative, in accordance with the Constitution. The average district population for the country is divided into the population of each state, giving the number of whole districts for each state. Then the 387 seats remaining after each state has been allotted one seat are distributed according to these whole districts. After the population of the state is divided by the average district population, there will be a remainder which will be a fraction of the state not represented. Some of the 387 seats, however, will be left over to apply to these fractional remainders. The state with the largest fraction of unrepresented population will get the first of these extra districts, the state with the second largest unrepresented fraction will get the second extra district and so on. Extra seats will be exhausted before it is possible to give all the state fractions representation, but it is calculated that no unrepresented fraction which is finally left over will amount to more than 50% of the population of an average district. In other words, no major fraction of a district will remain without representation.