District of Columbia Representation: Effect on House Apportionment
Released: 2011-03-31T00:00:00

Background

H.R. 157 / S. 160 , the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 introduced in the 111 th Congress, provided for a permanent increase in the size of the U.S. House of Representatives, from 435 seats to 437 seats. The bills specified that one of the additional seats was to be allocated to the District of Columbia while the other seat was to be assigned either by using the normal apportionment formula allocation procedure ( H.R. 157 ) or specifying that the seat would be allocated to Utah, the state which would have received the 436 th seat under the 2000 apportionment process. Thus, this would add a fourth seat to Utah's three ( S. 160 ). While both versions treated the District of Columbia as if it were a state for the purposes of the allocation of House seats, each bill restricted the District of Columbia to a single congressional seat under any future apportionments.

Similar bills had been introduced in the 110 th Congress. On April 19, 2007, the House approved H.R. 1905 (a revised version of H.R. 1433 ) by a vote of 241 to 177 (Roll Call vote 231) and sent it to the Senate for consideration. On June 28, 2007, S. 1257 was reported out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs with amendments. On September 18, 2007, cloture on the motion to proceed to consideration of the measure was not invoked in the Senate on a Yea-Nay vote, 57 - 42, leaving the measure pending. No further action occurred on the legislation.

Adding New States and Seats to the House

The 435 seat limit for the size of the House was imposed in 1929 by statute (46 Stat. 21, 26-27). Altering the size of the House would require a new law setting a different limit. Article I, §2 of the Constitution establishes a minimum House size (one Representative for each state), and a maximum House size (one for every 30,000 persons, or 10,306 representatives based on the 2010 Census). For the 2010 apportionment, a House size of 468 would have resulted in no state losing seats held from the 112 th to the 116 th Congresses. However, by retaining seats through such an increase in the House size, other state delegations would become larger. At a House size of 468, California's delegation size, for example, would be 56 instead of 53 seats, Texas's delegation size would be 38 instead of 36 seats, and Florida's delegation size would be 29 instead of 27 seats.

Congressional Precedent

General congressional practice when admitting new states to the Union has been to increase the size of the House, either permanently or temporarily, to accommodate the new states. New states usually resulted in additions to the size of the House in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. The exceptions to this general rule occurred when states were formed from other states (Maine, Kentucky, and West Virginia). These states' Representatives came from the allocations of Representatives of the states from which the new ones had been formed.

When Alaska and Hawaii were admitted in 1959 and 1960 the House size was temporarily increased to 437. This modern precedent differed from the state admission acts passed following the censuses in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries which provided that new state representatives would be added to the apportionment totals.

The apportionment act of 1911 anticipated the admission of Arizona and New Mexico by providing for an increase in the House size from 433 to 435 if the states were admitted.

As noted above, the House size was temporarily increased to 437 to accommodate Alaska and Hawaii in 1960. In 1961, when the President reported the 1960 census results and the resulting reapportionment of seats in the reestablished 435-seat House, Alaska was entitled to one seat, and Hawaii to two seats. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Missouri each received one less seat than they would have if the House size had been increased to 438 (as was proposed by H.R. 10264, in 1962).

Apportionment Impact

Apportionment of the House of Representatives

Table 1 , below displays the apportionment of the seats in the House of Representatives based on the 2000 Census apportionment population (the current House apportionment) and the apportionment of seats in the House based on the 2010 Census apportionment population (the distribution of seats among the states for the 113 th Congress). In addition, Table 1 also shows the impact on the distribution of seats in the House if the District of Columbia were to be treated as if it were a state for apportionment purposes for both a House size of 435 seats and a House size of 437 seats.

First, due to population changes between the 2000 Census and the 2010 Census, Table 1 shows a shift of 12 seats among 18 states for the 113 th Congress (beginning in January 2013). Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania will each lose one seat; New York and Ohio will each lose two seats. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington will each gain one seat; Florida will gain two seats; and Texas will gain four seats. These are the actual seats to be allocated based on the results of the 2010 Census.

Second, if the District of Columbia were to be given a vote in the House of Representatives and treated as if it were a state in the reapportionment of congressional seats following the 2010 census, and the House size remained at 435, Minnesota would lose a seat relative to what it is scheduled to get as a result of the 2010 Census. Thus, Minnesota's delegation would fall to seven Representatives if the District of Columbia were to given a vote and the House size remained at 435 Representatives.

Third, if, on the other hand, the District of Columbia were to be given a vote in the House of Representatives and treated as if it were a state and the House size were to be increased to 437, the District of Columbia would receive one Representative and North Carolina would be entitled to fourteen Representatives, one more than the state is scheduled to receive in the apportionment following the 2010 census. Also, Minnesota would retain its eighth seat and no other state would be affected by the change.

Winners and Losers

Another way to see the impact is to examine the allocation of the last seats assigned to the states when the District of Columbia is allocated a seat (presumably the 51 st seat). The actual apportionment is done through a "priority list" calculated using the equal proportions formula provided in 2 U.S.C. §2a.(a). Table 2 , below, displays the end of the priority list that was used to allocate Representatives based on the 2010 Census, including the District of Columbia. The law only provides for 435 seats in the House, but the table illustrates not only the last seats assigned by the apportionment formula (ending at 435), but the states that would just miss getting additional representation.

Table 3 is similar to Table 2 , in that it displays the end of the priority list, but the last seat is 437 instead of 435. The priority values and the population needed to gain or lose a seat do not change if DC is treated like state, as DC is entitled the constitutional minimum of one Representative.