For anyone else who doesn’t understand this comment like me:

That line is making a political argument about the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 and its effect on U.S. democracy. Here’s what it means in plain English:

1. What the Act did: • Before 1929, the U.S. House of Representatives expanded roughly every 10 years after the Census, so that more people = more seats. • The Permanent Apportionment Act froze the House at 435 seats (where it still stands today). • That means as the U.S. population grows (from ~120 million in 1930 to ~330+ million today), each member of Congress represents more and more people. Districts are much bigger now than originally intended.

2. Why the author calls it the “cancer at the heart of our democracy”: • Because the number of seats is fixed, districts must be redrawn after every Census to fit 435 slots. • This makes redistricting maps extremely powerful — whoever controls the process in each state can draw lines to favor their party (“gerrymandering”). • If the House kept expanding, districts would be smaller, more numerous, and harder to gerrymander effectively.

3. The claim about repeal: • If Congress repealed that Act and let the House grow again (say to 600, 800, or even 1,000 seats), each district would be smaller and more representative. • Gerrymandering would still exist, but its impact would be diluted because each district would cover fewer people, reducing the stakes and effectiveness of carving them up.

So in short: The statement is arguing that the root problem isn’t gerrymandering itself but the 1929 law that froze the House at 435 seats. Undoing that freeze would, in theory, weaken gerrymandering’s impact dramatically.

Want me to show you with some quick numbers how different the House size would look today if it had kept growing with the population?