The framers of the United States Constitution called for a census to be conducted every 10 years so that legislative representation could be fairly apportioned.
But in 1913, for the first time, Congress didn't increase the size of representation, keeping it at 435. And in 1929, they passed a law limiting the number to 435. The nation has since doubled in population, but legislative representation remains unchanged.
The result, says Yale historian Mark Peterson, is an ongoing argument over how to distribute a stagnant number of seats.
"We have created this false sense that representation is a scarce item that we have to fight tooth and nail over, when we could have as many representatives as we want," he said.
This is just one of dozens of reasons why Peterson believes we have reached a constitutional crisis point. In his new book, "The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution: A Thousand-Year History" (Princeton University Press), Peterson argues that because the written document establishing the country doesn't reflect the enormous societal changes of the past 250 years and the greatly expanded role of the federal government, it now restricts the possibilities for good government.
