Good article in the Times about something that won’t happen: reforming the Department of Agriculture.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/opinion/11kristof.html
Speaking of things that won’t happen, one powerful change that would only require Congressional approval would be the removal of the 1911 cap of the House of Representatives at 435 members (the House was originally 120 and had grown until then). Since every state gets at least one Representative, you end up with some districts – Wyoming at-large, for example – with many fewer people than a “standard” district. The Wyoming Rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule) would set the size of the house as the population of the country divided by the population of the least-populous state. For a big state such as CA, it makes a difference – the state goes from 53 to 73 congressmen as the House goes from 435 to 569.
