Thirty-Thousand.org, Inc.

06/07/2026

NY Times’ Nicholas Kristof just highlighted something striking: States with a “healthy opposition party” and real political competition tend to deliver higher resident satisfaction, trust, and well-being. (Minnesota’s pragmatic, competitive politics topped the new State of the Nation rankings.)

The pattern isn’t perfect, but it does make sense.

Yet nationally, our rigid two-party duopoly stifles exactly such healthy competition. As George Washington warned, parties can substitute “the will of a party” for “the will of the Nation.”

Our solution is simple and Founders-aligned: Enlarge the House. Smaller, equally-populated districts would shatter the duopoly, empower independents & third parties, foster genuine diversity within the major parties, and restore real accountability.

The result? The kind of competitive politics that actually improves lives.

Read Kristof: nytimes.com/2026/06/06/opinion/happiness-trust-americans-states.html

And here is our case for ending the political duopoly: thirty-thousand.org/end-political-duopoly/

What do you think—ready to and bring back healthy political competition? 🇺🇸

Trust, well-being and mental health are all down in America. But some states are better to live in than others, according to a new study.

06/03/2026

In today’s 435-member House, one seat can cost $34 million to contest. If there were over 6,000 Representatives, the value of any single seat would become almost negligible, read here…

In today’s 435-member House, one seat can cost $34 million to contest. If there were over 6,000 Representatives, the value of any single seat would become almost negligible.

05/26/2026

Tulsi Gabbard explains why being one of an oligarchy of 535 effectively makes you royalty: “It is very easy for people to get sucked into the swamp in Washington. Maybe this is not what they were looking for when they ran for office, but immediately you were treated like you were something special. Red carpets are rolled out, special access, VIP treatment, fancy parties, people kissing your ass every freaking day.” ▶︎ It wouldn’t be this way if our House of Representatives was as large as the founders intended! (Interviewed by Shawn Ryan Show show on Sept. 16, 2024.)

05/13/2026

This recent NY Times editorial discussed the need for political reforms, stating that “𝑖𝑡 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 (𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘵 435 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘺)”. Substantially enlarging the House is an idea so radical that it was first proposed by Congress in 1789!

The ruling in Louisiana v. Callais might drive America’s politics to an even more precarious place of partisan tension and ideological Balkanization.

05/13/2026

AI is consolidating into a powerful oligopoly that will be able to easily capture Congress, shape elections, and steer public opinion at scale. The strongest defense against AI dominance isn’t more regulation—it’s restoring the Founders’ vision of a much larger House of Representatives with thousands of members elected from small congressional districts, as explained here…

Controlling the Emerging AI Oligopoly Will Require a Substantially Larger House of Representatives

05/11/2026

𝗨𝗻𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲: 𝗔 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹… 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘇𝗲𝗿𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘀, as explained in our new essay: “𝘜𝘯𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘐𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺”.
Master Sgt. Gannon Van D**e allegedly used classified details from a covert military operation to bet $34K on a prediction market — resulting in a $409K profit. He’s now facing federal charges that could put him away for decades.
And Congress? Still zero criminal prosecutions after 14 years of the STOCK Act — despite repeated, suspiciously well-timed trades by sitting members.
These are analogous transgressions with radically different consequences.
This isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s the predictable result of vast power concentrated in only 535 people — 435 Representatives and 100 Senators who write the rules they’re supposed to follow.
The fix obviously isn’t more rules that they will ignore. It’s dispersing that power across a far larger House so no single member’s access is worth enough to exploit — and no one stays above the law.

Prosecuting The Soldier While Ignoring Egregious Corruption in the US House

05/11/2026

Ancient Athens ran a democracy with one councillor per 60 citizens. Our House has one Representative per 760,000.

Most Americans have never heard of the Boule — ancient Athens’s Council of 500 — but it was the beating heart of the world’s first democracy (c. 508–322 BCE).

After overthrowing a tyrant, the reformer Cleisthenes created ten tribes mixing rich and poor, urban and rural citizens. Each tribe sent 50 ordinary men — potters, farmers, merchants — chosen by lottery. Together they formed a 500-person council that met daily, managed city finances, received foreign ambassadors, and drafted every proposal that went before the full citizen Assembly.

The key was scale: Athens had roughly 30,000–60,000 eligible citizens. A random farmer could realistically know his councillor — or become one himself. No career politicians. No distant elites.

Athens: One councillor per 60–120 citizens. Our U.S. House today: One Representative per 760,000.

The Founders understood this: The U.S. Constitution and the Federalist Papers envisioned a House with districts of roughly 30,000 people each. The first Congress proposed a 1:50,000 ratio as the minimum House size. Today we’re at 1:760,000 — and the results are predictable: career politicians, donor capture, and a Congress that feels as remote as a royal court.

We don't need lotteries or ancient constitutions to fix this. We have the constitutional authority to expand the House right now. More members means smaller districts, less money per race, and Representatives who actually know their constituents.

Athens proved that a scaled council could sustain real democracy, and we need to substantially enlarge our House to sustain our republic! It’s time to make our People’s House actually belong to the people again. For more information, see thirty-thousand.org.

04/29/2026

In a recent interview, former Sen. Ben Sasse—now facing terminal pancreatic cancer—reflected on Congress’s inability to deal with the important issues facing the country. As shown in the 27-second video below, one of his observations is that our House of Representatives should have 2,000 members, instead of only 435. At Thirty-Thousand.org we’ve long made the same case: Restore the citizen-legislator model the Founders intended. Ben Sasse’s diagnosis, and his reckoning with mortality, has prompted exactly the kind of clear-eyed perspective that our republic needs. We are grateful for his voice at this moment.

04/27/2026

Elon Musk exposed one of the biggest loopholes that enriches Congressmen with your tax dollars.

Taxpayer money flows from the U.S. government to NGOs. Then it crosses borders, to where American law no longer applies, passing through multiple entities overseas before circling back into the U.S.

As Musk points out: “They’ll send the money overseas to one NGO, then they’ll go through a bunch of them, and I’m highly confident that a bunch of that money then comes back… and lands in the pockets of [our Congressmen]. It’s a circuitous route.”

Meanwhile, though many longtime members of Congress earn approximately $200,000/year, they can have net worths north of $20 million. As Musk points out: “There are a lot of strangely wealthy members of Congress… I’m trying to connect the dots of how do they become rich… Nobody can explain that.”

This is why real reform matters. http://Thirty-Thousand.org
advocates for substantially enlarging our House of Representatives, which would greatly dilute the power of the entrenched few, and restore accountability to We The People!

04/20/2026

Misconduct in the House of Representatives keeps occurring because so much power is concentrated in only 435 Representatives.
Sexual misconduct, financial self-dealing, and bribery aren’t random — they’re enabled by an undersized House where each member holds oligarchic power over 760,000 people, with weak oversight and near-guaranteed reelection.
Real reform requires spreading that concentrated power across a much larger number of Representatives by replacing a few political oligarchs with thousands of citizen-legislators who feel the weight of the same moral & legal constraints as the rest of us. This Substack essay explains why enlarging the House is key to ending Washington’s culture of impunity:

Why Our Imperial Congress Enables Corruption