Size of the U.S. House of Representatives
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Allocation of congressional districts after the 2000 census.

United States congressional apportionment is the redistribution of the 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives among the 50 states in consequence of the constitutionally mandated decennial census. Each state is apportioned a number of seats which approximately corresponds to its share of the aggregate population of the 50 states (populations of Washington, D.C. and federal territories are not included in this figure). However, every state is constitutionally guaranteed at least one seat.

The decennial apportionment also determines the size of each state's representation in the United States Electoral College—any state's number of electors equals the size of its total congressional delegation (i.e., House seat(s) plus Senate seats).

Federal law requires the Clerk of the House to notify each state government of its entitled number of seats no later than January 25 of the year immediately following the census. After seats have been reapportioned, each state determines the boundaries of Congressional districts—geographical areas within the state of approximately equal population—in a process called redistricting.

House size

The size of the United States House of Representatives refers to total number of congressional districts (or seats) into which the land area of the United States proper has been divided. The number of voting representatives is currently set at 435.

The United States Constitution requires that

The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative (Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 3)

Prior to the twentieth century, the number of representatives increased every decade as more states joined the union, and the population increased.

In 1911, Public Law 62-5 set the membership of the U.S. House at 433 with a provision to add one permanent seat each upon the admissions of Arizona and New Mexico as states. As provided, membership increased to 435 in 1912, where it has remained since, with a brief exception from 1959 to 1963 following the admissions of Alaska and Hawaii, during which House membership was 437.

The maximum of "one [Representative] for every thirty thousand" currently limits the House to about ten thousand members. The present size of 435 seats means one member represents on average about 650,000 people; but exact representation per member varies by state. Four states – Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska and North Dakota – currently have populations smaller than the average for a single district, though none has fewer than two-thirds of the average.

Proposals have been made to add voting representation for the District of Columbia, now represented only by a non-voting delegate (see below), who is not counted as one of the 435 House representatives. Recent bills, such as the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007, would resolve the issue by permanently increasing House membership to 437. One of the new members would be from the District of Columbia; the other would be from the next state in line to receive another House seat (as described below), presently Utah.

Controversy

During the period that the current U.S. Constitution has been in effect, the number of citizens per congressional district has risen from an average of 30,000 in 1789 to nearly 700,000 as of 2008^[update]. It has been suggested that a new reapportionment act is needed to significantly raise the number of representatives toward the end of creating more equitable districts. ¹

The ideal number of members has been a contentious issue since the country's founding. George Washington objected to the original number of Representatives proposed at the Constitutional Convention as being too small². In Federalist 55, James Madison argued that setting the initial number of Representatives at 65 was not a threat to liberty, stating, "I am unable to conceive that the people of America, in their present temper, or under any circumstances which can speedily happen, will choose, and every second year repeat the choice of, sixty-five or a hundred men who would be disposed to form and pursue a scheme of tyranny or treachery"³. Madison went on to argue that other constitutional safeguards, such as division of powers among the three branches of government and between the two houses of Congress, as well as the Article I, Section 6 provision banning Representatives from holding civil office, would be enough to prevent perfidy. Madison advocated keeping the number of Representatives within certain bounds:

Nothing can be more fallacious than to found our political calculations on arithmetical principles. Sixty or seventy men may be more properly trusted with a given degree of power than six or seven. But it does not follow that six or seven hundred would be proportionably [sic] a better depositary. And if we carry on the supposition to six or seven thousand, the whole reasoning ought to be reversed. The truth is, that in all cases a certain number at least seems to be necessary to secure the benefits of free consultation and discussion, and to guard against too easy a combination for improper purposes; as, on the other hand, the number ought at most to be kept within a certain limit, in order to avoid the confusion and intemperance of a multitude. In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

Since each state is guaranteed one Representative under Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, the minimum size of the House would be 50 Representatives. This would convert it into a non-proportional, U.S. Senate-like body. At the other extreme, because the number of Representatives cannot exceed one for every thirty thousand, the maximum number of Representatives at this time would be approximately 10,100.

The first proposed amendment to the Constitution attempted to set a pattern for growth of the House along with the population, but was never ratified.

Non-voting delegates

There are an additional four delegates to the House of Representatives. They represent the District of Columbia and the territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico also elects a resident commissioner every four years. The Northern Mariana Islands does not currently elect any sort of representative to Congress; however, an act to add a delegate from the Northern Mariana Islands was signed into law on May 8, 2008. The CNMI will replace its Resident Representative in Washington DC with a non-voting delegate in the House following an election in November 2008.⁴

History

The original size and apportionment of the House was set by Article One, Section 2.2C Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution.

The last time the number of seats was increased, to 435, was in 1910. That number was later fixed by the Reapportionment Act of 1929 and the Apportionment Act of 1941.

For a brief period from 1959 to 1962, the admission of the states of Hawaii and Alaska to the United States required the temporary addition of two additional representatives for a new total of 437 voting seats. The number of seats reverted to 435 following reapportionment after the 1960 census.

Apportionment methods

Apart from the fact that the number of delegates is at least 1 for each state, as required by the Constitution, a state's number of representatives is in principle proportional to population (thus equalizing the size of congressional districts nationwide). No method of calculating this desired result, however, has been found perfectly satisfactory in practice. Five distinct methods have been used since the adoption of the Constitution, all of them susceptible to mathematical paradoxes.

The Equal Proportions Method

Further information: Huntington-Hill method

The apportionment methodology currently used is the "Equal Proportions method"⁵, so called because it guarantees that no additional transfer of a seat (from one state to another) will reduce the ratio between the numbers of persons per Representative in any two states.

In this method, as a first step, each state is automatically guaranteed at least one seat in Congress. That means there are a total of 385 seats left to assign.

The remaining seats are assigned one at a time, to the state that "deserves" another seat the most. Thus, the 51st seat always goes to the most populous state (currently California).

The apportionment method uses a mathematical formula to express the priority ordering of states for an additional seat. For instance, in the example above, California has already received a second seat and thus "deserves" a third one less.

The formula used by the method of equal proportions is

where P is the population of the state, and n is the number of seats it currently has. An equivalent, recursive definition is

where n is still the number of seats the state has, and for n = 1, A is explicitly defined as

A sequential definition may likewise be given where the n = 1 case is defined as above, but the formula is

When all states have one seat, the largest value of A corresponds to the largest state. But now that California has two seats, its priority value decreases, and it has to take a step back in line. The 52nd seat goes to Texas, the 2nd largest state, but the 53rd goes back to California, and so on until all the seats have been handed out. Each time a state gets a seat, its priority drops and another state comes to the top of the list.

The Census 2000 Ranking of Priority Values⁶ shows the order in which seats 51–435 were apportioned after the 2000 Census, with additional listings for the next five priorities. North Carolina was allocated the final (435th) seat. Utah (priority list 436) missed a fourth seat by only 857 residents. Legal action by Utah to amend the results, citing irregularities in the North Carolina count and undercounting of Utah's overseas missionary population (suggested to be as many as 14,000), was unsuccessful. However, Utah could receive a fourth seat if the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007 passes.

Past apportionments

See also: Apportionment Bill

Note: The first apportionment was authorized by the Constitution, not the Census.

Projected changes following the 2010 census

The U.S. Census Bureau will conduct a comprehensive census in April 2010 (2010 census). Based on the populations counted in each state, the United States Congress will be reapportioned based on the Equal Proportions Method defined above. The total number of voting representatives is expected to remain at 435, assuming no legislation passes that would modify the apportionment process. Since the Census Bureau releases population estimates every year, projections have been made that predict the states' populations as of April 2010. One study estimates that fourteen seats would shift between the states as follows:⁷

The 10-year national growth rate is 12.5%. In this estimate, the population of states losing seats grew at a slower rate and the population of states gaining seats grew at a faster pace. Louisiana is the only state losing a seat that is estimated to have lost population between 2000 and 2010, significantly due to the exodus precipitated by the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. The losing states are in the industrial northeast and midwest, while gainers are in the southeast, southwest and Pacific northwest.⁷

Past increases

The size of the House has increased as follows⁸:

1789-1800

1801-1820

1821-1840

1841-1860

1861-1880

1881-1900

1901-present

Proposed expansion

Expansion would cause the United States Electoral College result to more closely reflect the national popular vote, as the number of Representatives would begin to dwarf the number of Senators, which is fixed at two per state. The Wyoming Rule, an idea with some contemporary currency, calls for expanding the House until the standard Representative-to-population ratio equals that of the smallest entitled unit (i.e. Wyoming). This proposal is primarily designed to address the fact that some House districts are currently nearly twice the size of others; for instance, there are about 944,000 residents in Montana's single district, compared to about 515,000 in Wyoming's. See List of U.S. states by population.

On May 21, 2001, Rep. Alcee Hastings sent a dear colleague letter arguing that U.S. expansion of its legislature had not kept pace with other countries⁹.

Notes

• Delegate counts in italics represent temporary counts assigned by Congress until the next decennial census or by the U.S. Constitution in 1789 until the first U.S. Census.
• Elections held in the year of a census use the apportionment determined by the previous census.

See also

• List of states ordered by number of electors in the presidential elections, which is two more for each state.
• United States Congress
• United States House of Representatives
• Apportionment paradox
• Redistricting
• Gerrymandering
• List of U.S. states by population

External links

• Congressional Apportionment by the U.S. Census Bureau
• Cut-the-knot.org:The Constitution and Paradoxes
• Thirty-thousand.org
• Commentaries and More Information on Increasing U.S. House Size.