Is there a formula for how US House of Rep seats are given to states after each census? I know each states gets one seat, but in what way are the rest given out? I’ve tried a couple formulas in Excel, but couldn’t imitate the current situation. Not sure where in the laws or regs this would be explained. Did the Constitution say exactly how to do it? When was the last increase in house members made?
Thanks. ;j
The Constitution guarantees that each state has a minimum of one Representative, and allows Congress to decide the exact method for doling out the rest. (Provided, of course, that it’s proportional in nature.) For a few decades now the size of the House has been set by statute to 435 representatives, not counting the weird ones from Guam and Puerto Rico and whatnot.
The exact method of apportionment has varied over time. The Census people have an excellent page discussing the various systems:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/apportionment/computing.html
First, divide the population evenly. Give each state one representative, leaving you with 385 to distribute to multi-representative states. If a state is under 150% of the national population/435 figure, it gets one representative. If it’s 150% or over but not 250%, it gets two. And so on.
In point of fact, factors are added in to account for the possibility of failure to get an accurate count, how close a state is to the N+50% line, etc. But that’s the basic means of doing the calculation.