The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1940-04-25

(By Staff Writer)
Washington.-The purpose o:
the census is, primarily, to decide
how many members each state i:
entitled to in the House of Rep
resentatives. That depends, Of
course, upon how many member:
there are in the House and how
many inhabitants there are ir
each state.
While the Constitution provides
for the reapportionment of Repre-.
sentatives after each ten years
census, it does not lay down any
rules for doing it. It is entirely
up to Congress itself to decide
how many members shall sit in
the lower House.
The number of Senators is
fixed by the Constitution. There
are two for each state, Or So in
all; and until some new states are
admitted there will be no need
to rearrange the seats in the Sc
nate Chamber. That has had to
be done a number of times in the
House of Representatives.
The number of members of the
lower House, however, has stood
fixed at 435 since 1910. Censuses
since then have shifted the ap-
portionment of the 435, but have
not changed the number. Della
ware, for example, has two
members of Congress at one time
and Vermont had three, but each
of those states has only one now.
Their populations have not de-
creased but the populations OF
other states have increased to the
point where fair distribution of
Congressman entities them to
greater proportionate representa-
ton.
Florida Doubled
Thus, in recent years, Flori-
da's growth in population has
doubled it's representation in
Congress, and California has
nearly three times as many men,
bers as it did forty years ago. No
matter how small the population
of state it is entitled to at least
one Representative.
Nevada has never had as many
as one hundred thousand inhabi-
tants but they have the right to
representation, although in most
states there are 100000 or more
represented by a single Congress
man. This Congress has already
decided that there will be no
change in the number of mem
bers of the lower House. The Sc
nate passed a bill to that effect
last year. The House has just
passed similar bill, with the ex-
ception of one point which the
Senate included.
The Senate bill provides for the
apportionment of Representatives
according to the number of "citi-
zens" living in each state. That
is not what the Constitution calls
for. The Constitution specifically
provides for the apportionment
of members of the House in pro-
portion to "the whole number of
free persons" not "citizens".
Indians not taxed are still omit
ted in apportioned Representa-
tives among the states. The
House has passed this census re-
apportionment bill, changing the
Senate's attempt to require only
citizens to be included in each
members constituency.
The purpose of that effort was
to keep New York States repre-
sentation from becoming too
large, since New York has a lar
ger number of non-citizens than
any other state. The basic law,
however, contemplates that even
aliens living in this country are
entitled to be represented at
Washington, even though they
cannot vote for their representa-
tives.
State Decides
How the Congressional Dis
tricts are dividved is matter for
each state to decide. Some of
them never decide it but elect all
their members by the entire vote
of the state.
There is nothing in the Consti-
tuition that requires the division
of states into Congressional dis
tricts, and there is no law requir-
ing a member of Congress to be
a resident of the district which
he represents. For in theory he
does not represent any particular
section of the population of his
state but the whole citizenry OF
the Commonwealth.
Nav froo1,oo4 &c tho olIct0rn 01