The fact that higher rounding points are necessary for states to obtain additional seats has led to charges that the equal proportions formula favors small states at the expense of large states. Thus, the size of a state's House delegation depended on its population. How populous should a congressional district be on average? Rather than rounding up any remainder of .5 or more, and down for less than .5, however, equal proportions rounds at the geometric mean of any two successive numbers. In 1929, the Permanent Apportion Act capped the number of house seats at 435, the same as the number of representatives at the time. Any state with fewer residents than the "ideal" sized district would receive a seat because the Constitution requires each state to have at least one House seat. For example, for the 2010 apportionment, the "ideal" size district of 708,377 had to be adjusted upward to between 709,063 and 710,23111 to produce a 435-member House. The U.S. Constitution called for at least one Representative per state and that no more than one for every 30,000 persons. During the early 20th century, Walter F. Willcox, a Cornell University mathematician, determined that if the rounding points used in an apportionment method are divided into each state's population (the mathematical equivalent of multiplying the population by the reciprocal of the rounding point), the resulting numbers can be ranked in a priority list for assigning seats in the House.12, Such a priority list does not assume a fixed House size because it ranks each of the states' claims to seats in the House so that any size House can be chosen easily without the necessity of extensive re-computations.13. Next the sixth seat's allocation is determined in the same fashion. The number of voting representatives in the House is fixed by law at no more than 435, proportionally representing the population of the 50 states. This unprecedented book takes readers behind the scenes to show how the world's most enduring constitution was forged through conflict, compromise, and fragile consensus. The equal proportions method has been used in five apportionments and the major fractions method in three. Read more A committee of the National Academy of Sciences conducted an analysis of each of those methods—smallest divisors, harmonic mean, equal proportions, major fractions, and greatest divisors—and recommended that Congress adopt Huntington's equal proportions method. "Report of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Apportionment" in The Decennial Population Census and Congressional Apportionment, Appendix C, p. 21. Population Details: Step 3: Calculating the population quota. Support for the equal proportions formula primarily rests on the belief that minimizing the proportional differences among districts is more important than minimizing the absolute differences. The actual language in of Article 1, section 2 pertaining to this minimum size reads as follows: "The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative." Consequently, the first three seats assigned are not included in the table. The Supreme Court has never applied its "one person, one vote" rule to apportioning seats of the House of Representatives among states (as opposed to redistricting within states). How to apportion those 435 seats, however, continued to be an issue because of disagreement over how to handle fractional entitlements to a House seat in a way that both met constitutional and statutory requirements and minimized inequity. Comparing equal proportions and major fractions using the state populations from the 19 actual censuses taken since 1790, reveals that the small states would have been favored 3.4% of the time if equal proportions had been used for all the apportionments. For a review of this history, see U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, Subcommittee on Census and Statistics, The Decennial Population Census and Congressional Apportionment, 91st Congress, 2nd session. At the harmonic mean? Found inside – Page 280Some have proposed that Cook County should have fewer representatives per population than the rest of the State . Because Chicago has grown to be the second ... Average population density 434.9 people per square mile. Of course, any errors that may appear are due solely to the current author. "15 This method, called the Webster method in Fair Representation, is also referred to as the major fractions method (major fractions uses the concept of the adjustable divisor as does equal proportions, but rounds at the arithmetic mean [.5] rather than the geometric mean.) Population Details: The U.S. Constitution called for at least one Representative per state and that no more than one for every 30,000 persons. The geometric mean of 1 and 2 is the square root of 2, which is 1.4142. The resolution of this debate in California may have national implications. By authority of section 9 of PL 85-508 (72 Stat. For a thorough discussion, see Charles A. Kromkowski, Recreating the American Republic, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 2002), esp., pp. Equal proportions rounds at the geometric mean (which varies) rather than the arithmetic mean (which is always halfway between any pair of numbers). This became a statutory requirement with the passage of the Apportionment Act of 1941. To state it correctly, the number of U. S. Representatives per state is based on the ratio of each states population to the population of all of the states, with a minimum of one Representative . a. Found inside – Page 138In the six double suffrage States of Colorado , Utah , Idaho , Wyoming ... suffrage States , with an average population of 1,310,218 , the average cost per ... U.S. Congress, House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, Subcommittee on the Census and Statistics, The Decennial Population Census and Congressional Apportionment, 91st Congress, 2nd session, H. Report 91-1814, (Washington: GPO, 1970), p. 16. Found inside – Page 11-2This method established a predetermined number of representatives for each apportionment , and divided the population of each state by a ratio determined by ... Schmeckebier, Congressional Apportionment, p. 60. Published by Statista Research Department , Apr 1, 2015. The priority values listed beyond seat number 435 show which states would have gained additional representations if the House size had been increased. At the geometric mean? Dividing the ascertained number of people for the Commonwealth by twice the number of Senators for the states gives the population quota. Arguably, no apportionment method can meet the "one person, one vote" standard required by the Supreme Court for districts within states unless the size of the House is increased significantly (thereby making districts less populous). In addition, it can be argued that the major fractions minimization of absolute size differences among districts more closely reflects the "one person, one vote" principle established by the Supreme Court in its series of redistricting cases (Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1964) through Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S.725 (1983).20. 1  Federal law, passed on Aug. 8, 1911, determines how many members are in the House of Representatives. Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. U.S. States. Utah was the state with the fastest growing population over the last decade, increasing by 18.4%, while West Virginia had the most population loss, dipping 3.2%. Population Details: The average population in each state is 5,763,868 people. California has the highest population in the country, Alaska has the largest land area, and the District of Columbia has the smallest land area and highest population density in the country. This method, too, had its critics; and in 1921 Harvard mathematician E.V. California has the highest number of representatives, with 53 at a population of 39,747,267. By Joe Wolverton, II, J.D. Daniel Webster and others argued that Jefferson's method was unconstitutional because it discriminated against small states. The questions of how populous a congressional district should be and how many Representatives should constitute the House have received little attention since the number of Representatives was last increased from 386 to 435 after the 1910 Census.5 The problem of fractional entitlement to Representatives, however, continued to be troublesome. 1.88. California gained 10 electoral votes, New York 5. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative.... From its beginning in 1789, Congress was faced with questions about how to apportion the House of Representatives—questions that the Constitution did not answer. Found inside – Page 419United States. Congress. House. Committee on Agriculture. TABLE 3.- Population , average daily sales of whole fluid milk , per capita consumption ... 2(a).] Population Details: The United States Census Bureau’s population statistics encompass the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five US territories, including Puerto Rico. Webster's method was used three times, in the reapportionments following the 1840, 1910, and 1930 Censuses. Table by CRS, calculated by determining the reciprocal of the geometric mean of successive numbers, 1/√n (n-1), where "n" is the number of seats to be allocated to the state. Italy's optimal number is 570, but this country has a total of 945 representatives in 1995. A major controversy occurred even over the fixed, short-term apportionment of seats among the delegates at the Constitutional Convention. Huntington proposed the "equal proportions" method and developed formulas and computational tables for all of the other known, mathematically valid apportionment methods. H.R. O State Total population Slave population Number in, › Url: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/teachers/lesson_plans/pdfs/unit2_7.pdf Go Now, Population Details: population (of all fifty states) per the 2000 U. S. census is 280,849,847. 27 states that will have 1 or 0 Senators represent 19% of the population. United States congressional apportionment is the process by which seats in the United States House of Representatives are distributed among the 50 states according to the most recent decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution.Each state is apportioned a number of seats which approximately corresponds to its share of the aggregate population of the 50 states. › Url: https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R41357.html Go Now. 26 . 2010 Priority List for Apportioning Seats to the House of Representatives. According to our computations, France's optimal number is 545. Second, even a method that assigns each state its constitutional minimum of one seat, and otherwise relies on rounding at the .5 rounding point, might require a "floating" House size because rounding at .5 could result in either fewer or more than 435 seats. Since that time no other bill has been introduced to change the formula. Thus, the size of a state's House delegation depended on its population. The constitutional requirement of at least one seat for each state is met by assigning each state one seat automatically regardless of its population size. Largest state Senate with 67 members representatives per population by state the seventh seat 's allocation is determined to... The equal proportions method of major fractions does not favor large or small states the... Mathematical case can be no fewer than one for every 50,000 people ( both free and slave ) living state! 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