During discussion in class today, we were talking about the different powers Congress has, and we happened to bring up the number of members. Why is it 435 and not another obscure number?
If I'm breaking any rules, feel free to remove this, I'm more of a lurker than anything. But if you have an answer that would be awesome too!
Originally, the number of representatives in the house was based on the population of each state. The number started at 65 back in the beginning of the house. Essentially after each census, the number of representatives would grow based on how much the population grew. This took place from 1790 till 1913, ending at 435. At that point the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 stopped the number from growing. I got all this information from reading this source, check it out if you want to know more.