The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com.
Wisconsinites are used to making room. We’re always happy to open our arms to another person at the tailgate, put another chair around the campfire, or order another round for our friends.
When it comes to our congressional representation, however, we are facing the exact opposite of a Wisconsin-style welcome. As the state’s population has grown, our number of representatives in the House has actually declined.
That’s why Brad Smith, the Democratic candidate for Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District, deserves credit for supporting a reform that receives far too little attention – uncapping the U.S. House of Representatives. As Smith explains it: “Our government only works if people feel heard and represented. Right now, it doesn’t.”
Smith is correct that government only works when people feel heard and represented. That may sound obvious and, for most of American history, it was.
When the Constitution was written, the House had just 65 members. As the country grew, Congress routinely added seats after each census so that representatives could maintain a relatively close connection with their constituents.
But nearly one hundred years ago, it stopped. In 1929, Congress permanently capped the House at 435 members. At that time, Wisconsin had 11 representatives. Today, it has just eight, and it is currently projected to lose another after the 2030 Census due to slower population growth than other states. Yet during that time, the state’s population has grown from roughly 2.6 million then to nearly 6 million people today.
The result is predictable; Wisconsin’s congressional districts have become dramatically larger, but citizens’ representation in Washington hasn’t gotten better. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted earlier this year, in the past, “Committee chairs from Wisconsin had real power and influence, such as Democrat Dave Obey on Appropriations in the 1990s and 2000s, Republican Paul Ryan on Ways and Means in the 2010s, or Democrat Les Aspin on Armed Services in the 1980s and early 1990s.” But now, due to House districts that are literally bursting at the seams, “more than ever, House legislation is dictated top-down, by congressional leaders and the White House.” In other words, direct constituent services and representation suffers, but so does the state’s overall power and influence.
At its core, this is a representation problem, not a partisan one, and therefore one that Wisconsin residents should be focused on regardless of other policy preferences. A representative serving nearly 800,000 people cannot maintain the same relationship with constituents as one serving 350,000 or 400,000. Town halls become harder to hold, constituent services become more difficult, and individual voters have a harder time making their voices heard.
Wisconsin’s shrinking congressional representation also contributes to another problem those in the state know all too well: the increasingly intense fight over gerrymandering and how to draw congressional district lines. When there are fewer seats to go around, every seat becomes more valuable. Political parties have greater incentives to fight over district boundaries, and incumbents have greater incentives to protect their seats. Redistricting becomes a zero-sum game in which political gains for one group can mean losses for another.
Uncapping the House would not eliminate partisan gerrymandering, nor would it make Congress suddenly functional or guarantee that every Wisconsin voter gets the representative they want. But it would address the underlying scarcity that makes representation harder in the first place.
For Wisconsin voters, uncapping the House offers a chance to restore our representative government to what the Founders intended. Instead of accepting that every new census must produce winners and losers in a fixed contest for 435 seats, Congress could restore a principle that served the country for much of its existence; when the nation grows, representation should grow too.
As we approach the 2026 midterm elections, Wisconsin voters shouldn’t just be asking who they want to represent them in Congress. They should also be asking why they have to share one representative with nearly 800,000 of their neighbors in the first place.
Rory Riley Topping is an attorney, legal analyst, and former congressional staffer who currently serves as the outreach director for Project No Cap. She is the co-author of two books: “Draw the Line in Ohio: How One State’s Fight for Fair Maps Explains Gerrymandering in America” and “Justice and the American Veteran: A History of the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.”
