INFORMATIONAL BRIEF
Applying Models of Legislative Size to LA City Council Expansion
Francisco Jasso, PhD, Pat Brown Institute – California State University, Los Angeles
Core Question
The purpose of this brief is to review existing models for estimating the size of legislative bodies
and apply them to the efforts to expand the LA City Council. Projected LA City Council sizes
are presented using resident-to-representative ratios of other large US cities, models for US
House expansion, and other CA cities.
Summary of Topline Findings
Leveraging other large cities’ resident-to-representative ratios may work best for determining an
ideal council size for LA. Other models examined function in reference to
resident-to-representative ratios developed by the Founders, or are anchored to state populations,
and translating and applying those models to the case of the LA City Council produce varying
council sizes ranging from 7 to 158 seats.
Background & Information
Relative to other large cities, the LA City Council has a small council consisting of 15 members
for a population of ~3.9 million. Below is a table with the council sizes of other large cities and
their ratio of resident-per-district. The last column in the table shows how large the LA City
Council would be if it followed the residents-per-district ratio of other large cities.
Table 1: Resulting Council Size for Los Angeles Using Residents-per-District Ratios of other Large
Cities
Population City
Council
Size
# District
(# At Large)
Residents per
council district
Resulting Council
Size for LA
Cities
Outside of
California
8.5 million NYC 51 166,666 23
2.7 million Chicago 50 54,000 71
2.3 million Houston 11 (5) 209,091 18
1.6 million Philadelphia 10 (7) 160,000 24
1.6 million Phoenix 8 200,000 19
2
966,000 Jacksonville 14 (5) 69,000 56
Cities
Within
California
1.38 million San Diego 9 155,000 24
983,000 San Jose 10 98,300 39
874,000 San Francisco 11 80,000 48
542,000 Fresno 7 77,000 49
In 1989, NYC expanded its city council from 35 to 51 seats, with 55% voter approval.1 NYC
Council expanded to increase representation and did not follow any formulas to determine an
appropriate size. In their assistance to the NYC charter revision efforts, Muzzio & Tompkins
(1989) stated there were few, if any, empirical studies on the size of the legislature that could
help them recommend an optimal size for NYC, rather the optimal size depended on the task at
hand.2 LA attempted to increase their city council a few times in the decades prior to 2000. The
latest attempt to increase the council to 21 or 25 seats in 1999 failed.
7 Models to Expand the House
Making use of models to expand the size of the House of Representatives may provide useful
insights. Overall, the models for House of Representative expansion Drutman et al. (2021)
review would expand the House from 435 members to between 572 and 9,400 members.
The only model to readily appear in academic research (comparative politics) is the Cube Root
Law. For the purposes of expanding the House of Representatives, academic literature favors the
Cube Root Law (Ladewig & Jasinski 2008; Lijphart 1998; Lucas & MacDonald 2000). In
general, the Cube Root Law is seen as the simplest method of managing population growth with
the communication demands (i.e., efficiency and representation) inherent to a legislative body
(Taagepera 1972). Additionally, this is the only model that is used to estimate/express the pattern
of legislature size-to-population ratio found in the national assemblies of other advanced
democracies (Ladewig & Jasinski 2008, pg. 99).
Of course, this literature focuses on national assemblies, not local city councils. Applying the
cube root law of national assemblies to the LA City Council would yield a city council of 158
2 Muzzio & Tompkins did cite limited research at the time on committee sizes recommending a range between 9-13
members.
1
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/08/nyregion/1989-elections-charter-overhaul-new-york-city-charter-approved-pol
ls-show.html
3
members. Given the previous failure in expanding the council merely into the low- to mid-20s
range, expansion to 158 would be out of the question.
The remaining models function in reference to constituent-to-representative ratios developed by
the Founders, or are anchored to state populations, and translating and applying those models to
the case of the LA City Council also produce varying council sizes ranging from 7 to 113 seats.
4
Model Formula/Ratio New House
Size
Resulting Council
Size for LA
Wyoming Rule Anchored to population of least
populous state 574 7
Deferred
Maintenance Rule
Restoring seats lost at 1929 size
cap
585 7
Cube Root Law Cube root of population 693 158
Least Variation in
District Size
364,000 – 326,000 per
representative 909 - 1,014 11-12
Restore Original
1790 Ratio 35,000 per representative 9,400 113
Restore 1913 Ratio 211,000 per representative 1,600 19
James Madison
Rule 50,000 per representative 6,500 79
Other Recommendations
1. 2021 LA City Council Redistricting Commission report recommends expanding to a
range of 22-26 seats.3 An Appendix of this commission report includes residents per
district ratios of other CA cities. The first 4 columns below reproduce that report’s table
but has an added column with the implied LA City Council size if LA followed the ratios
of other CA cities. Of course, the 2023 CLA report also provides a table with the
residents per district the LA City Council would have for each council size from 15 to 25.
~ Population City Council Size Residents per
district
Resulting Council
Size for LA
1.38 million San Diego 9 155,000 26
1 million San Jose 10 101,000 39
874,000 San Francisco 11 80,000 49
542,000 Fresno 7 77,000 51
2. A May 2022 UCLA MPP thesis (Schwartz et al. 2022) recommends an odd-numbered
council size of at least 23 seats. This report also provides tables for different council
3 2021 Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission. “Report and Recommendations of the Los Angeles City
Council Redistricting Commission.” 2021 Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission. October 26, 2021.
https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2020/20-0668-S7_misc_10-29-21.pdf
5
sizes and estimates for the annual cost (in both dollars and as percent of LA City budget)
of expanding the city council to 21, 25, 30, and 50 seats.
References
Drutman, L., Cohen, J. D., Levin, Y., Ornstein, N. J. (2021). The Case for Enlarging the House of
Representatives. Cambridge, Mass.: American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ladewig, J. W., & Jasinski, M. P. (2008). On the Causes and Consequences of and Remedies for
Interstate Malapportionment of the US House of Representatives. Perspectives on
Politics, 6(1), 89-107.
Lijphart, A. (1998). Reforming the House: Three Moderately Radical Proposals. PS: Political
Science and Politics, 31(1), 10–13. https://doi.org/10.2307/420424
Lucas, D. L., & McDonald, M. D. (2000). Is it time to increase the size of the House of
Representatives. American Review of Politics, 21, 367-382.
Muzzio, D., & Tompkins, T. (1989). On the size of the city council: Finding the
mean. Proceedings of the Academy of Political science, 37(3), 83-96.
Schwartz, K., Jauregui, V. C., Emanuel, A., Medrano, D., Roller, J., & Coulter, J. (May 2022).
Strategies for Expanding the Los Angeles City Council: Nearing a Century with Fifteen
Seats. UCLA Master of Public Policy Thesis.
Taagepera, R. (1972). The size of national assemblies. Social science research, 1(4), 385-401.
Taagepera, R. (2009). Predicting party sizes the 2007 Johan Skytte prize lecture. Scandinavian
Political Studies, 32(3), 240-246.
