As the population grows...

[kennethhenrydeome]

As the U.S. population continues to grow and we retain the same number of House Seats, we in effect are granting an increasing advantage to smaller states whose populations tend to grow at a slower rate.

We have not increased the number of House Seats for nearly a century excluding the admission of new states.

Since the addition of two Senate Seats was meant to counteract the advantage of more populous states over smaller states but now the House Seat "freeze" is magnifying that effect, how do we--or do we--resolve the situation?

[True Federalist]

While I haven't done a statistical analysis, a look at the 2010 census results does not show that the smaller states are on average slower than the other states.  Indeed of the 10 slowest growing states, 5 of them are among our 10 biggest states and only 2 are among our 10 smallest.

Not that I don't agree we could use a larger House. I favor having a number of seats equal to the cube root of the population, which would give the house 675 seats, but the problem you are worried about does not appear to be significant.

[memphis]

How does a smaller House work to the advantage of smaller states? Montana has most number of people per congresscritter.

[True Federalist]

How does a smaller House work to the advantage of smaller states? Montana has most number of people per congresscritter.

That's because Montana is at the sour spot for apportionment under our current system, just under √2 of an ideal House seat.  If it had had just a few more people then it would would had two Representatives and replaced Rhode Island for the distinction of having the least number of people per congresscritter.

Right now we have no States that are unfairly overrepresented because of the guaranteed House seat.  Back in 1900, Nevada had a population of only 42,335 at a time when an ideal House seat had 194,182 people.  That is the worst historical mismatch.

[memphis]

How does a smaller House work to the advantage of smaller states? Montana has most number of people per congresscritter.

That's because Montana is at the sour spot for apportionment under our current system, just under √2 of an ideal House seat.  If it had had just a few more people then it would would had two Representatives and replaced Rhode Island for the distinction of having the least number of people per congresscritter.

Right now we have no States that are unfairly overrepresented because of the guaranteed House seat.  Back in 1900, Nevada had a population of only 42,335 at a time when an ideal House seat had 194,182 people.  That is the worst historical mismatch.

No state unfairly overrepresented? Ever hear of Wyoming? And, as you point out, Rhode Island. Individually, small states get "unfair" representation, both over and under because frequently neither 1 nor 2 is perfectly fair (and so you have overs and unders, MT and RI). I don't see how small states, as a group, benefit, which was the premise I was refuting. The Montanas and Rhode Islands cancel each other out.

[True Federalist]

No state unfairly overrepresented? Ever hear of Wyoming?

Wyoming has enough population that even without the guaranteed seat for being a State it would still have a Representative of its own, so it isn't what I would call unfairly overrepresented.  Granted, the disparities between States would be reduced if we had enough Seats that every State would have at least two Seats, but that only would reduce us from 2:1 to √3:1 (1.73:1) as the maximum disparity possible.

[zorkpolitics]

We clearly need more Congresscritters since the 435 we have now have been doing such a great job.
Lets up the number to 999 (the House always has an odd number to avoid ties).

Does anyone know how an additional 564 seats would be apportioned?  Would the increase in Electoral Votes be an advantage for the Democratic or Republican states?

[True Federalist]

I'm not going to do the detailed calculation, but every state would have at least 2 Representatives, and DC would have 4 electors, so there would be 1103 electoral votes.

[Darius_Addicus_Gaius]

very interesting to think about

[Talleyrand]

We clearly need more Congresscritters since the 435 we have now have been doing such a great job.
Lets up the number to 999 (the House always has an odd number to avoid ties).

Does anyone know how an additional 564 seats would be apportioned?  Would the increase in Electoral Votes be an advantage for the Democratic or Republican states?

Maybe we do. But don't you think having around a thousand would be pretty chaotic?

[Vasall des Midas]

I'm not going to do the detailed calculation, but every state would have at least 2 Representatives, and DC would have 4 electors, so there would be 1103 electoral votes.

I've found a calculator for it on the net, tho' I had to manually enter the 2010 census populations (well, copy-and-paste them state-by-state which was only minimally quicker). It appears to have a bug...ooh feature... though, capping state's seat tallies at 60, so really this is for 759 seats outside of California, Texas, New York and Florida, or... whatever? 1100-odd? nationally.

Alabama 17, Alaska 3, Arizona 23, Arkansas 11, California 60*, Colorado 18, Connecticut 13, Delaware 3, Florida 60*, Georgia 35, Hawaii 5, Idaho 6, Illinois 47, Indiana 24, Iowa 11, Kansas 10, Kentucky 16, Louisiana 17, Maine 5, Maryland 21, Massachusetts 24, Michigan 36, Minnesota 19, Mississippi 11, Missouri 22, Montana 4, Nebraska 7, Nevada 10, New Hampshire 5, New Jersey 32, New Mexico 8, New York 60*, North Carolina 35, North Dakota 3, Ohio 42, Oklahoma 14, Oregon 14, Pennsylvania 46, Rhode Island 4, South Carolina 17, South Dakota 3, Tennessee 23, Texas 60*, Utah 10, Vermont 2, Virginia 29, Washington 24, West Virginia 7, Wisconsin 21, Wyoming 2.



*is this a bug? Is that

[Jackson]

I would imagine that they probably used the census departments calculations for seats, which only go up to 60 seats per state.

[Vasall des Midas]

I would imagine that they probably used the census departments calculations for seats, which only go up to 60 seats per state.

Seeing as I had to enter the populations, that makes little sense.
Maybe both sites use the same calculator program or something.

[True Federalist]

They probably programmed it assuming people would want a 435 seat Congress and thus more than 60 seats per State would not be wanted.   They probably are generating the preference values for seats 2-60 for each State and then sorting that list.

[Vasall des Midas]

They probably programmed it assuming people would want a 435 seat Congress and thus more than 60 seats per State would not be wanted.   They probably are generating the preference values for seats 2-60 for each State and then sorting that list.

Yeah. The ability to change the seat total may well have been added as an afterthought.

[ask_not]

it seems we should add more electors.