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21Sep/090

The convincing math behind a bigger House (of Representatives)

FiveThirtyEight has an interesting piece up that was inspired by a suit recently filed contesting the legality of the present system of allocating Congressional representation in the House.

The suit roughly involves a concept in a "lost amendment" to the Constitution that would've capped the size of Congressional districts at just 30,000 people. While that would be absurd now --it'd leave us with a 30 million person House-- the overall thinking behind it reveals some surprising inequalities in the present representation of the "several states" in the House.

The most populous district in America right now, according to the latest Census data, is Nevada’s 3rd District, where 960,000 people are represented in the House by just one member. All of Montana’s 958,000 people likewise have just one vote in the House. By contrast, 523,000 in Wyoming get the same voting power, as do the 527,000 in one of Rhode Island’s two districts and the 531,000 in the other.