Apportionment of Representatives in Congress

Report Outline
Reapportionment of Representation in the Past
The Reapportionment Struggle in Congress
Apportionment on Basis of 1930 Census
Representation in Foreign Countries

In the House of Representatives of the Seventieth Congress, which convened for its first session December 5, 1927, the 48 states of the Union have 435 representatives. Each state delegation has the same number of members it had in the Sixty-third Congress, which was elected in November, 1912—more than 15 years ago.

The last apportionment of representation in the House was made in 1911 on the basis of the census of 1910. That census gave 91,972,266 as the total population of the continental United States. The ratio adopted in the last apportionment was one representative to each 211,877 of the population, excluding Indians not taxed.

Since the 1911 apportionment the population of the United States has increased by nearly 30 per cent, totaling 118,268,000 on July 1, 1927, according to the Census Bureau's most recent estimates. If the rate of growth had been the same in all parts of the country, each of the 435 members of the House would now represent about 272,708 constituents.