Reapportionment

To reflect the federal nature of the government (see Federalism), the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 created the House of Representatives as the lower house of Congress to represent the people and the Senate as the upper house to represent the states. Article I, section 2, of the Constitution, as amended by section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868), addresses the reapportionment of the House. The seats in the Senate are fixed for each state at two senators who run for at-large seats and are not subject to reapportionment.

In the Constitution as ratified in 1789, in Article I, section 2, slaves were counted for purposes of representation in the House as “three fifths of all other persons.” After the Civil War (1861–65), [Page 454]slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment (1865). To reflect the fact that former slaves were from then on to be counted as one person, section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) provided in part: “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.”

The portion of Article I, section 2, that remains unaffected by the Fourteenth Amendment states: “The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.” Apportionment of representatives in the House of Representatives is based on each state’s population, as determined by the latest census taken every ten years. Thus every ten years states that lose a sufficient number of residents will lose one or more representatives in the House and states that gain in population will receive an additional seat or seats.

But the number of seats in the House of Representatives—435—remains the same, as set by law in 1912. Every state, no matter how small its population—including Vermont, Delaware, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska—is guaranteed at least one seat in the House. [Page 455] The remaining 385 seats are the ones that get reapportioned every ten years, based on a formula set by law.

Four different formulas have been used since 1790 for reapportioning the seats in the House of Representatives. After the 1930 census and a report made by the National Academy of Sciences, Congress chose the “method of equal proportions.” This formula is complicated but results in the smallest relative difference between any pairs of states when comparing any district’s population and the number of people per representative—which obviously has increased as the nation’s population has increased. As a result of the 2000 census, the average number of constituents for each member of the House is 646,952.

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