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After the 2000 Census results were reported, seats
in the House of Representatives were reapportioned on the basis of the
new population data.As required
by Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, "Representatives ...shall
be apportioned among the states within this union according to their respective
numbers...." Each state is entitled to one seat, and the remaining seats
are allocated on the basis of each state's share of the total population.Congress
provides rules and formulas to determine which states receive the remaining
seats.Currently there are 50 states
and 435 seats in Congress.Congress
currently employs the "method of equal proportions" to allocate seats and
determine what to do for a state that is owed a fraction' of a representative.(That
is, if a state is entitled to 4.4 or 4.6 representatives, does the state
receive 4 or 5?). Over the course of the history of the republic, the
number of states, the number of seats in the House of Representatives,
the formula for allocating the seats, and of course the population of the
states all have changed.The states
have gone from 13 to 50; the size of the House has risen from 105 to 435.There
have been 4 methods used to allocate the seats. And the population has
grown from 3.9 million to about 275 million. In other words, these are
the four possible variables one needs to consider to undertake the apportionment
of the House of Representatives. The spreadsheets and tables that are linked to this
page are designed to serve as a primer on Congressional reapportionment.They
contain tables of the population history of the states of the United States
from 1790 to the present, a historical table of the apportionment of Congress
since 1790, explanations and calculation worksheets for apportioning Congress,
and a bibliography of additional research resources. The reader may wish to browse the historical tables
and explanation of apportionment methods, and then try to calculate alternate
scenarios for apportioning Congress. Currently we provide 2 methods of
apportionment (the method of equal proportions and the method of major
fractions).We also allow the reader
to put in a test column of state population data to calculate the apportionment
of the House.And we provide a worksheet
which would allow the reader to create new states, for example, by making
Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia states, and observing the impact
of adding new states on House apportionment.Finally
we provide the reader with the possibility of adding 215 new members to
Congress and calculating House apportionment with 650 members. Congressional apportionment is one of the more fascinating
aspects of the American state structure.For
most of the history of the republic it required repeated and tedious hand
calculations of complicated formulas with very large numbers and fractions.With
the availability of good spreadsheet packages to do the calculations and
the World Wide Web to display the principles, we hope to bring the principles
and calculations to a wider audience. And we hope therefore, as the 2000 Census results
appear, our viewers will take up the task of calculating House apportionments
and inspecting the implications of the methods currently in use, and even
considering how they might change if Congress so chose.
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