U.S. congressional apportionment is the process by which seats are distributed among the 50 states. Each state is apportioned a number of seats which approximately corresponds to its share of the aggregate population. The Huntington–Hill method of equal proportions has been used to distribute the seats among the states since the 1940 census reapportionment.
About United States congressional apportionment in brief
U.S. congressional apportionment is the process by which seats are distributed among the 50 states. Each state is apportioned a number of seats which approximately corresponds to its share of the aggregate population. The number of voting seats in the House of Representatives has been 435 since 1913, capped at that number by the Reapportionment Act of 1929. The Huntington–Hill method of equal proportions has been used to distribute the seats among the states since the 1940 census reapportionment. The size of a state’s total congressional delegation (which includes 2 senators for each state) also determines the size of its representation in the U. S. Electoral College, which elects the president. The ideal number of congressional members has been a contentious issue since the country’s founding in 1789, when the Federal Government began operating under the Constitution. Prior to the 20th century, the average number of citizens per congressional district has risen from 33,000 in 1790 to over 700,000 as of 2018, according to the Congressional Research Service. The original proposal to reduce the number of representatives to 30,000 was supported by George Washington, who supported an alteration to reduce that number to 30. The current number of members of Congress is currently set at 435, with an additional five delegates to represent the District of Columbia and the territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern and Puerto Rico, and the U S. Virgin Islands, which first elected a representative in 2008. It is hoped that the current system of congressional representation will continue to be used in the future, as it has been in the past, and that it will be more representative of the people of the United States than it was in the 1789 founding Convention.
It has been estimated that the number of representatives will reach 5,000 by the end of the century, if the current trend of population growth continues to be the case. It’s estimated that by 2060, the number of representatives will be as high as 6,000, compared to the current 4,000. The decennial census does not affect the elections that are held during that same year. For example, the electoral college apportionments during the 2020 presidential election was still based on the 2010 census results. Likewise, the congressional districts and the electoral College during the 2040 general elections will still bebased on the 2030 census. The state determines the boundaries of congressional districts—geographical areas within the state of approximately equal population—in a process called redistricting. The deadline for the House Clerk to report the results does not occur until the following January, and. the states need sufficient time to perform the redistricting, the decennial census doesn’t occur until January 25 of the year immediately following the census. Whether or not the number of seats has changed, the state determines the boundaries of congressional districts in a process known as redistricting in the next January. The U.S Constitution provides that each State shall have at least one Representative;…“Three-fifths of all other persons” refers to the inclusion of 3⁄5 of the slaves in the population base.
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This page is based on the article United States congressional apportionment published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
