1 How Are Seats in the House of Representatives Apportioned

"Representatives and directly Taxes shall be apportioned amongst the several States which may exist included within this Union, according to their corresponding Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall exist made within three Years afterward the commencement Coming together of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each Country shall have at Least one Representative…"
— U.Due south. Constitution, Article I, section 2, clause 3

"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their corresponding numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each Country, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at whatever election for the option of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male person inhabitants of such State, existence twenty-one years of historic period, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other law-breaking, the footing of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male person citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of historic period in such Land."
— U.Due south. Constitution, Subpoena XIV, section 2

The Constitution provides for proportional representation in the U.Due south. House of Representatives and the seats in the House are apportioned based on country population according to the constitutionally mandated Demography. Representation based on population in the House was one of the most important components of the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Origins

The American Revolution was, in part, a contest most the very definition of representation. In England, the House of Commons represented every British discipline regardless of whether the discipline could really vote for its membership. In this sense, virtually people living in areas under British rule—including North America—were only "nearly represented" in Parliament. American colonists, who were used to decision-making their local affairs in the straight-elected colonial legislatures, lacked a voice in Parliament and resented the British policies imposed on them. Thus, they rallied backside the at present familiar motto: "No tax without representation!"

After the war, the founders struggled to design a organisation of government to better represent the inhabitants of the new land than did the British model which once governed them. The Manufactures of Confederation created the first national congress to represent the interests of the states: each state would appoint between two and seven delegates to the congress, and each state delegation would have ane vote.

Constitutional Framing

/tiles/not-collection/i/i_origins_proport_repres_hres_127_14_th_nara.xml 14th Amendment, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration The 14th Amendment declared that all persons born or naturalized in the U.South. were citizens and that any country that denied or abridged the voting rights of males over the age of 21 would be field of study to proportional reductions in its representation in the U.Southward. Business firm of Representatives. Approved by the 39th Congress (1865–1867) every bit H.J. Res. 127; ratified by the states on July ix, 1868.

The Ramble Convention addressed multiple concerns in the procedure of designing the new Congress. The first was the relationship of the to the lowest degree populous states to the nigh populous. The boxing between big and small states colored nearly of the Convention and nearly ended hopes of creating a national government. Pennsylvania Consul Benjamin Franklin summed up the disagreement: "If a proportional representation takes identify, the modest States contend that their liberties volition be in danger. If an equality of votes is to be put in its place, the large States say their money will be in danger. When a broad table is to be made, and the edges of planks do not fit the creative person takes a little from both, and makes a proficient joint." The "adept articulation" that emerged from weeks of stalemate was called the "Great Compromise" and created a bicameral legislature with a Business firm, where membership was determined by country population, and a Senate, where each state had ii seats regardless of population. The compromise enabled the Convention, teetering on the brink of dissolution, to continue.

The Convention determined that a Census of the population conducted every 10 years would enable the House to adjust the distribution of its Membership on a regular ground. The method, however, proved controversial. Southern delegates argued that their slaves counted in the population, yielding them more Representatives. Northern delegates countered that slaves were property and should not exist counted at all. The result was the notorious "3-Fifths Compromise," where slaves were counted every bit three-fifths of a free person. Having originated in revenue enhancement policy, this rule was dedicated during the Convention equally a necessary compromise given the "peculiar" state of slaves as both property and "moral" individuals subject area to criminal police force. Virginia's James Madison wrote in Federalist 54 that the reasoning appeared "to be a trivial strained in some points" simply "fully reconciles me to the calibration of representation, which the Convention have established."

Representation was likewise linked to tax. Before federal income taxes or tariffs, the states contributed to the national government with local taxes, oftentimes flat poll taxes on each denizen. Since constitutional framers had to provide for the funding of the new authorities, they debated the proper relationship betwixt representation and taxation. Several delegates argued that geographic size or useable farmland were better measures of state wealth than mere population. Delegates, however, settled on proportional contributions based on population and, past extension, the number of Members in the Business firm of Representatives. Large states, with more man capital, should contribute more than acquirement to the national government and also have more seats in the legislature every bit a issue. This fulfilled the promise of the American Revolution: tax with representation.

14th Amendment

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified after the Civil State of war, began to remedy the "original sin" of the Constitution, and ordered the Census to fully count every individual regardless of skin color. While it was a step in the correct direction, it did little to ease the country'due south racial tensions. Moreover, instead of directly providing for the enfranchisement of African Americans, the amendment stipulated that only males over the age of 21 could not exist discriminated against when voting unless they had participated in rebellion against the Union or "other criminal offense." Women were not enfranchised until 1920, when the 19th Amendment stipulated that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged . . . on account of sexual practice." In 1971, the 26th Amendment enfranchised those eighteen years of age and older. The latter amendments, withal, did non alter congressional apportionment.

Current Practise

Congress has capped the number of Representatives at 435 since the Circulation Act of 1911 except for a temporary increase to 437 during the admission of Hawaii and Alaska as states in 1959. Equally a result, over the last century, congressional districts have more than tripled in size—from an boilerplate of roughly 212,000 inhabitants afterward the 1910 Census to about 710,000 inhabitants following the 2010 Demography. Each land's congressional delegation changes equally a outcome of population shifts, with states either gaining or losing seats based on population. While the number of House Members for each state is determined co-ordinate to a statistical formula in federal police, each state is so responsible for designing the shape of its districts so long as it accords with various provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which seeks to protect racial minorities' voting and representation rights.

For Further Reading

U.Due south. Census Bureau. U.Due south. Department of Commerce. "About Congressional Apportionment." http://world wide web.census.gov/population/apportionment/about/.

Eagles, Charles W. Democracy Delayed: Congressional Reapportionment and Urban–Rural Conflict in the 1920s. Athens, GA: Academy of Georgia Printing, 2010.

Farrand, Max, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Rev. ed. four vols. (New Haven and London: Yale Academy Press, 1937).

Madison, James, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay. The Federalist Papers. (New York: Penguin Books, 1987).

Reid, John Phillip. The Concept of Representation in the Age of the American Revolution. (Chicago: Academy of Chicago Press, 1989).

Rossiter, Clinton. 1787: The Thousand Convention. (New York: Macmillan, 1966)(.

Tate, Katherine. Black Faces in the Mirror: African Americans and Their Representatives in the U.S. Congress. (Princeton: Princeton University Printing, 2003).

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Source: https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Proportional-Representation/

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