Talk:United States congressional apportionment

Prisoners

Does anyone know if prisoners count towards the population of a state?

If so, does the original law, which included the phrase "including those bound to Service for a Term of Years", include prisoners with a life sentence as life sentences are not based on a term of years?

That quote refers to indentured servants, not prisoners, who are counted. -Rrius (talk) 22:23, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Prisoners do count toward represented population. "But when the right to vote ... is denied ... except for ... crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced ..." (14th Amendment) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:7:2200:9900:D0C4:E9CF:AC37:81DA (talk) 05:10, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Massachusetts is the wrong color in the 2010 map

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, Massachusetts is the wrong color in the map at the top of this article page. Before the redistricting that arose from the 2010 census, Massachusetts had ten U.S. Representatives. With the redistricting stemming from the 2010 census, Massachusetts has lost a House seat: it now has nine seats. The map shows "9" for Massachusetts, but has the state colored orange, which represents "no change". In fact, there was a change, from 2000 to 2010, from ten to nine. Map needs correction. — President Lethe (talk) 00:42, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Iowa's original representation

The list states that Iowa's admission to the Union added 2 representatives and increased the total number correspondingly. However, the citation given (5 Stat. 743) states that Iowa would only get a single representative. What is the basis for this claim? —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 18:28, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The act of Aug 4, 1846 (9 Stat. 52) amended the statute you cite (5 Stat. 743). See, 9 Stat. 52, §3, in particular. --Foofighter20x (talk) 04:11, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the clarification, and for updating the article to reflect it! —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 22:51, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

1850

After the 1850 Census, there were 234 Representatives, yet the act cited for that provided that the size of the House would be 233 Representatives (in section 24). Where did the extra Representative come from? Was there a later amendment to that act? XinaNicole (talk) 19:26, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

There was a problem with collecting or tabulating the California census data (the number that did come in was interpreted as wildly low), so 10 Stat. 25 allowed California to maintain the 2 representatives it had originally be allotted upon entry to the Union. However, it is not clear to me why the total remained at 234 (plus additions) after the next census. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 16:53, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Is there an optimal number of representatives?

The 2010 US population was over three times the population in 1913 when the number of representatives was fixed at 435. This means a combination of more work for representatives to keep in touch with their constituents and less contact for each constituent with their representative. Community meetings and advances such as electronic communication have helped, but to maintain contact with constituents representatives have had to resort to summaries by staff. The population of the US in the 1910 census (which yielded the 435 number of representatives) was 92.4 million. The 2020 census is expected to count over 330 million US residents.

A mathematical model that is over 50 years old balances the communication between representatives with the communication between each representative and the representative's constituents (for any organization). This calculation yields an "optimal" number of representatives as the 1/3 power of the population. This formula would have yielded 452 representatives for the 1910 census, a good match. A study in the early 1970's showed a good correlation between this formula and national populations at that time. The two largest outliers were China with 3000 representatives (around 3 times larger than expected) and the US with only 435 representatives in the House (around 1/3 smaller than expected).

A French 2007 study used a somewhat different measure of representatives (including both houses of a bicameral legislature). Log-Log regression analysis yielded an exponent of approximately 0.4. The authors had expected an exponent of 1/2 based on the Penrose Model. Drbits (talk) 08:26, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

• the (U.S. Census of Legal Residents, U.S. Nationals, and U.S. Citizens)^(1/3) is probably the best number of electors, this number less the number of states x 2 and 2 for DC will probably work for apportionment/representation in the u.s. house of representatives (including the non voting DC person until statehood)... changing apportionment would only require a federal law as the apportionment act of 1929 was a federal law, Amendment XXIII only granted the presidential vote to DC and did not impact the apportionment of the actual house. PerkinsC (talk) 16:42, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

  Interesting question, and interesting article. The article, of course, assumes that nations in fact do this "efficiently". This may be true, but it's kind of hard to prove such a thing. Also, it seems to me that what is "optimal" is really likely to be a function of an awful lot of factors in society. For example:

• I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that in the US, the optimal ratio of 1789, for example, would be the same as the optimal ratio now.
• The optimum ratio in a country like Israel, where everyone runs on national lists (so that it's not exactly clear how to connect MKs to constituents) may not be the same as in a country where there are specific constituencies, like US or UK. (And anyone who has ever seen the Knesset in action knows that it's plenty chaotic with just 120 members.)
• I also find it hard to believe that even after adjusting for population, the ratio in countries where the legislature does real work and countries where the legislature is nominal ought to be the same. (It's ironic that China's legislature has so many, and the US's so few, in that sense.)
• The article certainly doesn't take into consideration many peculiarities in constitutional/legal systems in different countries. It's odd that the authors assume they should apply their findings in UK to Commons but not Lords, yet don't make the same allowance in the US. Constitutionally, the Senate is what it is, and my view would be that if one were to apply a formula like the one suggested here, it would be applied strictly to the House.

  There's no Constitutional reason it couldn't be; the only actual restrictions on the House are (a) at least one representative per state, (b) no more than one representative per 30,000 people (I, 3) and apportioned by population (ibid. and Amendment XIV). It's a fine question whether that makes the legal minimum 50 Representatives, but it's clear that the legal maximum is a bit over 10,000 (based on 2010 Census). (Talk about chaos ...)

  On the other hand, the bigger the House, the less important the small states' "extra two" Presidential electors become. So assume there would be political opposition from small states.

  Remember, too, that the DC electoral vote is always the same as that of the state with the fewest Representatives. So DC would not be left behind, in that sense, if even Wyoming went up to two or three Representatives.

In The Federalist #10, and then in more detail ##55–58, Madison discusses this in some detail, of course. Still, all that Madison really says is "not so few that the body doesn't fairly represent the diversity of the population, not too many that the body itself becomes chaotic". If you've got a good, culture-specific way to prove either of those boundaries, I'd love to see it. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:17, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

References

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Admission of New Mexico and Arizona

This article and secondary sources indicate that New Mexico was granted 2 representatives upon its admission to the Union, increasing the total number of seats from 391 to 393. However, I cannot find a citation in the statutes that supports that. 37 Stat. 14 states the following:

That if the Territories of Arizona and New Mexico shall become States in the Union before the apportionment of Representatives under the next decennial census they shall have one Representative each, and if one of such Territories shall so become a State, such State shall have one Representative, which Representative or Representatives shall be in addition to the number four hundred and thirty-three, as provided in section one of this Act, and all laws and parts of laws in conflict with this section are to that extent hereby repealed.

This seems to me to be a redundant way to say "each state gets one Representative upon its respective admission to the Union", but perhaps I'm misreading it. Is there another source for New Mexico getting 2 seats? Is there a statute that encodes New Mexico's population between the 1910 census and the official 1913 apportionment? —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 20:24, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

@GPHemsley: It sure seems funky, but I can kind of trace it.

• The source for two seats exists: it's the Enabling Act of 1910, 36 Stat. 557, Sec. 5 (actually on page 561). This was approved in June 1910.
• The Apportionment Act of 1911 (37 Stat. 14, which you cited above), was approved Aug. 8, 1911.
• The resolution that actually admitted New Mexico and Arizona, Pub. Res. 8, S.J. Res 57, was approved on August 21, 1911. The resolution explicitly states that the two states were to be admitted under the terms of the June 1910 Act.

New Mexico's Centennial Blue Book includes a section on New Mexico's Congressional history researched by UNM Prof. Emeritus Dan D. Chávez. It's a little odd, to be sure. First, it says that the Apportionment Act was enacted "later". Then, it says that New Mexico was permitted to seat two Representatives "nevertheless".

When you pull all that together, what you get, I think, is this:

• The last of the bunch to be approved was the admission resolution, so its terms superseded anything previous. Because its terms incorporated the 1910 Act, and that Act explicitly stated that New Mexico was to elect two Representatives in its first election as a state, then New Mexico proceeded to elect two Representatives in its first election.
• The admission resolution and the 1910 Act were both silent on subsequent elections. Accordingly, the 1911 Act governed, and New Mexico went back to one representative.

At least, this is what I think happened. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:57, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

@GoldRingChip: I saw you just reworked the apportionment history table, which is a "Good Thing".(smile) It seems to me, though, that at least with respect to New Mexico, as @GPHemsley points out, you can't really cite 37 Stat. 14 as support for two representatives for New Mexico. Question I would ask, in light of the analysis I did just above, would be, do we use 36 Stat. 561 or Pub. Res. 8 (don't know the USStat citation for that)? StevenJ81 (talk) 13:53, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@StevenJ81: I see what you mean. I don't know. It appears oddly vague. —GoldRingChip 14:07, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@GoldRingChip: Doesn't it? Still, on further research ...

• On reading it further (actually at 37 Stat. 13), that statute was effective for the Congress entering in March 1913, not for the Congress elected in 1910 based on the 1900 census (and 31 Stat. 733, plus Oklahoma). So it seems neither New Mexico's November 1911 election nor Arizona's January 1912 election were governed by the 1911 Act at all, in any way.
• In both cases, it seems that the actual sources must be Pub. Res. 8 (37 Stat. 39), which gave substance to details outlined in the 1910 Act (36 Stat. 561, op. cit.), and both might need to be mentioned in the table.
• Consequently, too, the following entry in the table (up to 435) needs to cite both §§1 and 2, since you need both together to get to 435 (instead of, say, 436). StevenJ81 (talk) 15:52, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

 Done StevenJ81 (talk) 14:17, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Slaves

Were slaves counted as population? I expect that the slave states wanted the slaves to count for the apportionment. Smiley.toerist (talk) 18:00, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

For the not-so-simple answer to that simple question, see Three-Fifths Compromise. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:54, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks: I added this info to the article.Smiley.toerist (talk) 12:48, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

It was really already there, but I can see why you wanted an explicit statement. I just reworded what you wrote a little bit. I removed the second occurrence, because that was explicitly removed by the Fourteenth Amendment. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:49, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

"Past apportionments" section

I've just made this WP:BOLD edit to the table in this section. I'm not entirely happy with it but it seems an improvement. I'm inviting discussion here regarding that.

This grew out of a suggestion in Talk:United States Electoral College#Indicator of highest amount of electors from each state, and I have made a suggestion there which involves this the Past apportionments article section here. If there is discussion regarding that, please discuss it there. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:29, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

"Past apportionments" section

Not sure I'm doing this right so feel free to correct it. In the Apportionment Methods section it states "The revised method was necessary in the context of the cap on the number of Representatives set in the Reapportionment Act of 1929." This is not true - the prior (Webster) method would work with a fixed number of representatives.24.8.46.212 (talk) 03:21, 9 March 2021 (UTC) dave@twinsprings.com

The highest priority number formula is wrong

In the Computing Apportionment section of the census website they explain the formula of Equal Proportions Method as

$A_{n}={\frac {P}{\sqrt {n(n-1)}}}$

Not

$A_{n}={\frac {P}{\sqrt {n(n+1)}}}$

how apportionment is calculated Ospination (talk) 00:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Recent legislation

Have there been any recent bills to repeal Permanent Apportionment and expand the House? 107.115.207.41 (talk) 21:17, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Chart revision data for 1789–1910

The chart at the top of the page House Seats by State 1789-2020 Census was discussed at https://junkcharts.typepad.com/junk_charts/2023/02/area-chart-is-not-the-solution.html. I'd be happy to make something similar to what is proposed as the better solution, but I need a source for the data. All I can find is https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/historical-apportionment-data-map.html, but that only goes back to 1910, not 1789. Vexations (talk) 22:43, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

The "Method of Equal Proportions" isn't.

Please read your 1st bibliography reference, Balinsky & Young !!

the lost first amendment

However, in the context of its original construction, the amendment may have instead outlined an iterative procedure for apportionment following a square root rule relative to the population (e.g. ${\textstyle Representatives\approx {\sqrt {10000+Population/100}}-100}$) that would still have called for a more than 1,600-member House following the same 2010 census.

If we're going to indulge conjecture— Supposing that the pattern of the clause were continued, it would go

… not less than sixteen hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every hundred ninety thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to seventeen hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than seventeen hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every two hundred thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to eighteen hundred

bringing today's count to 1700 exactly (because that number is between 331449281/200000 and 331449281/190000). —Tamfang (talk) 05:28, 29 September 2023 (UTC)