How Is the Number of House Representatives Determined
"Representatives and straight Taxes shall exist apportioned amid the several States which may be included inside this Spousal relationship, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by calculation to the whole Number of complimentary Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians non taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be fabricated within three Years after the beginning Meeting of the Congress of the U.s.a., and within every subsequent Term of x Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law directly. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every 30 M, only each State shall have at Least one Representative…"
— U.S. Constitution, Article I, department 2, clause iii
"Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. Simply when the right to vote at whatsoever election for the choice 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 inhabitants of such State, beingness twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."
— U.Southward. Constitution, Amendment Fourteen, section two
The Constitution provides for proportional representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and the seats in the House are apportioned based on country population according to the constitutionally mandated Census. Representation based on population in the House was one of the most important components of the Federal Ramble Convention of 1787.
Origins
The American Revolution was, in part, a contest about the very definition of representation. In England, the Firm of Commons represented every British subject regardless of whether the subject could actually vote for its membership. In this sense, nearly people living in areas nether British dominion—including North America—were only "virtually represented" in Parliament. American colonists, who were used to decision-making their local diplomacy in the directly-elected colonial legislatures, lacked a voice in Parliament and resented the British policies imposed on them. Thus, they rallied behind the now familiar motto: "No taxation without representation!"
Afterward the war, the founders struggled to pattern a organisation of government to amend represent the inhabitants of the new country than did the British model which in one case 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 take one vote.
Constitutional Framing
/tiles/non-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 Subpoena alleged that all persons built-in or naturalized in the U.Due south. were citizens and that any land 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.Due south. House of Representatives. Approved by the 39th Congress (1865–1867) as H.J. Res. 127; ratified by us on July 9, 1868.
The Ramble Convention addressed multiple concerns in the procedure of designing the new Congress. The starting time was the relationship of the least populous states to the virtually populous. The battle between big and small states colored most of the Convention and nearly ended hopes of creating a national authorities. Pennsylvania Delegate Benjamin Franklin summed up the disagreement: "If a proportional representation takes place, the small States argue that their liberties volition exist in danger. If an equality of votes is to be put in its place, the large States say their money volition be in danger. When a broad tabular array is to exist made, and the edges of planks exercise not fit the artist takes a niggling from both, and makes a practiced joint." The "adept joint" that emerged from weeks of stalemate was called the "Great Compromise" and created a bicameral legislature with a House, where membership was determined by state population, and a Senate, where each country had two seats regardless of population. The compromise enabled the Convention, teetering on the brink of dissolution, to proceed.
The Convention determined that a Census of the population conducted every 10 years would enable the House to conform the distribution of its Membership on a regular footing. 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 be counted at all. The event was the notorious "Iii-Fifths Compromise," where slaves were counted as iii-fifths of a costless person. Having originated in tax policy, this rule was defended during the Convention as a necessary compromise given the "peculiar" state of slaves every bit both belongings and "moral" individuals subject to criminal law. Virginia'southward James Madison wrote in Federalist 54 that the reasoning appeared "to be a little strained in some points" just "fully reconciles me to the scale of representation, which the Convention have established."
Representation was also linked to taxation. Before federal income taxes or tariffs, the states contributed to the national regime with local taxes, frequently apartment poll taxes on each denizen. Since constitutional framers had to provide for the funding of the new government, they debated the proper relationship between 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 Firm of Representatives. Large states, with more human capital, should contribute more than acquirement to the national government and also accept more than seats in the legislature as a outcome. This fulfilled the promise of the American Revolution: revenue enhancement with representation.
14th Subpoena
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified later on the Civil War, began to remedy the "original sin" of the Constitution, and ordered the Demography to fully count every private regardless of peel color. While it was a stride in the correct direction, it did little to ease the country's racial tensions. Moreover, instead of directly providing for the enfranchisement of African Americans, the subpoena stipulated that only males over the age of 21 could not be discriminated against when voting unless they had participated in rebellion against the Marriage or "other law-breaking." Women were not enfranchised until 1920, when the 19th Amendment stipulated that "the right of citizens of the U.s. to vote shall non exist denied or abridged . . . on account of sex." In 1971, the 26th Amendment enfranchised those 18 years of age and older. The latter amendments, however, did not alter congressional circulation.
Electric current Practice
Congress has capped the number of Representatives at 435 since the Apportionment Act of 1911 except for a temporary increase to 437 during the admission of Hawaii and Alaska as states in 1959. As a issue, over the last century, congressional districts have more than than tripled in size—from an average of roughly 212,000 inhabitants later on the 1910 Census to nearly 710,000 inhabitants following the 2010 Demography. Each state's congressional delegation changes as a consequence 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 then responsible for designing the shape of its districts so long as it accords with diverse provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which seeks to protect racial minorities' voting and representation rights.
For Further Reading
U.Southward. Census Agency. U.South. Section of Commerce. "About Congressional Apportionment." http://www.census.gov/population/apportionment/about/.
Eagles, Charles W. Democracy Delayed: Congressional Reapportionment and Urban–Rural Conflict in the 1920s. Athens, GA: Academy of Georgia Press, 2010.
Farrand, Max, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Rev. ed. 4 vols. (New Haven and London: Yale University Printing, 1937).
Madison, James, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay. The Federalist Papers. (New York: Penguin Books, 1987).
Reid, John Phillip. The Concept of Representation in the Historic period of the American Revolution. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
Rossiter, Clinton. 1787: The Grand 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 Press, 2003).
Source: https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Proportional-Representation/
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