House Apportionment: Could Census Corrections Shift a House Seat?

Congressional research reportOct 8, 2003

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Order Code RS21638

October 8, 2003

CRS Report for Congress

Received through the CRS Web

House Apportionment: Could Census

Corrections Shift a House Seat?1

Royce Crocker

Specialist in American National Government

Government and Finance Division

Summary

On September 30, 2003, the Census Bureau briefed selected congressional staff on

changes that will be made to the 2000 census counts through the bureau’s “Count

Question Resolution Program,” (CQR). This report uses the incomplete figures released

to staff at the September briefings to assess the potential impact on states’ claims to

Representatives if these figures were to be used to apportion seats in the House instead

of the official apportionment figures released by the Census Bureau on December 28,

2000. Although no seats would shift among states based on these numbers, the alreadynarrow margin between North Carolina and Utah for the last (435th) seat in the House

is narrowed by a factor of 10. This report will be updated when the Census Bureau

releases final numbers from the CQR program.

Background

One of the fundamental issues before the framers at the Constitutional Convention

in 1787 was how power was to be allocated in the Congress among the smaller and larger

states. The solution ultimately adopted, known as the Great (or Connecticut)

Compromise, resolved the controversy by creating a bicameral Congress with states

represented equally in the Senate, but in proportion to population in the House. The

Constitution provided the first apportionment of House seats: 65 Representatives were

allocated to the states based on the framers’ estimates of how seats might be apportioned

after a census. House apportionments thereafter were to be based on Article 1, section 2,

as modified by the Fourteenth Amendment:

Amendment XIV, section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the

several States ... according to their respective numbers....

Article 1, section 2. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for

every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative....

This report originally was authored by David Huckabee, who has retired from CRS.

Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

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The process of apportioning seats in the House is constrained both constitutionally

and statutorily. The Constitution defines both the maximum and the minimum size of the

House. There can be no fewer than one Representative per state, and no more than one

for every 30,000 persons.2

The current apportionment formula was adopted in 1941. In addition to specifying

the apportionment method, the 1941 Act sets the House size at 435 and mandates

administrative procedures for apportionment. The President is required to transmit to

Congress “a statement showing the whole number of persons in each state” and the

resulting seat allocation within one week after the opening of the first regular session of

Congress following the census.3

The Census Bureau has been assigned the responsibility of computing the

apportionment. As matter of practice, the director of the bureau reports the results of the

apportionment by December 31st of the census year. Once the results are received by

Congress, the Clerk of the House is charged with the duty of sending to the governor of

each state a “certificate of the number of Representatives to which such state is entitled”

within 15 days of receiving notice from the President.4

There are no provisions for altering the apportionment because of errors that may

later be found in census counts. The Census Bureau’s Federal Register program notice

pertaining to the “Count Question Resolution Program,” states that while “corrections

made to the population and housing unit counts by this program will result in the issuance

of new official Census 2000 counts ... and may be used by governmental entities for future

programs requiring official Census 2000 data,”5 the “Census Bureau will not change the

apportionment or redistricting counts to reflect corrections resulting from the CQR

process.”6

The CQR Program

The Count Question Resolution Program provides a mechanism for corrections to

the official census counts. Three types of challenges to the census counts are considered

by this program, which could result in: (1) correcting inaccurate boundaries of

jurisdictions; (2) reassigning inaccurately geocoded living quarters and their associated

The actual language in Article 1, section 2, pertaining to this minimum size reads as follows:

“The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State

shall have at least one Representative.” This clause is sometime misread to be a requirement that

districts can be no larger than 30,000 persons. It should be read as a minimum-size population

requirement, i.e. districts cannot have fewer than 30,000 persons.

55 Stat. 761 (1941) Sec. 22 (a). [Codified in 2 U.S.C. 2(a).] In other words, after the 2000

Census, this report was due in January 2001.

Ibid., Sec. 22 (b).

U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, “The Census 2000 Count Question Resolution

Program,” Federal Register, vol. 66, no. 77, July 6, 2001, p. 35589.

Ibid., p. 35593.

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population to correct boundaries; and (3) adding or removing specific living quarters (and

the persons residing in them) that were erroneously included in the counts.

The CQR process began on June 30, 2001, and jurisdictions had until September 30,

2003, to file challenges under the program. The Census Bureau released tables to

Congress showing the current tally of changes to the official counts identified as of

September 30, 2003, but not all challenges to census counts had yet been processed. The

most significant changes affect North Carolina, whose 13th Representative was the last

(435th) seat assigned in the official reapportionment of House seats following the 2000

census.

As of September 30, 2003, North Carolina would have its official 2000 census count

reduced by 2,673 persons because, according to the Raleigh News & Observer, the Census

Bureau “counted 2,696 students living in UNC-CH [University of North Carolina, Chapel

Hill] dormitories — twice.”7 Students in dormitories are supposed to be enumerated by

the “group quarters” procedure where forms are sent to the institution instead of

individuals in the group quarters. In the case of UNC-Chapel Hill, forms were sent to

some students as well as to the university. The discrepancy between the 2,673 and 2,696

figures is accounted for by other CQR activities in North Carolina. As of this writing, the

Census Bureau has not completed evaluating all challenges to the North Carolina figures,

so these figures may change; but the number of persons North Carolina would need to

lose for its 13th district to drop to the 436th position in the apportionment rankings would

be reduced from 3,084 to 309 persons if these new numbers were used to reapportion the

House (if Congress were to choose to do so).

On a nationwide basis, 7,183 persons are either added to, or subtracted from, state

populations, resulting in a net change of 1,427 persons from the September 30, 2003,

CQR program data. No seats would shift among states based on the revised

apportionment populations derived by these figures (see Table 1).

Table 1. Revisions of 2000 Census Apportionment Population

Based on Census Bureau’s September 30, 2003,

Count Question Resolution Program Numbers

State

Revised

2000 Census Count question

resolution

apportionment

changesb

populationc

populationa

4,461,130

628,933

-1

628,932

5,140,683

2,679,733

33,930,798

33,930,803

4,311,882

736

4,312,618

3,409,535

3,409,554

785,068

16,028,890

442

16,029,332

8,206,975

8,207,036

1,216,642

Seats

Rob Christensen, “Miller Vows to Stay in Seat Utah Covets,” Raleigh News & Observer, Oct.

2, 2003, [http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/miller/story/2915960p-2680128c.html], visited

Oct. 6, 2003.

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State

2000 Census Count question

Revised

apportionment

resolution

apportionment

populationa

changesb

populationc

1,297,274

1,297,277

12,439,042

274

12,439,316

6,090,782

6,090,803

2,931,923

2,931,981

2,693,824

396

2,694,220

4,049,431

440

4,049,871

4,480,271

-18

4,480,253

1,277,731

5,307,886

6,355,568

9,955,829

9,955,865

4,925,670

4,925,683

2,852,927

-2

2,852,925

5,606,260

1472

5,607,732

905,316

1,715,369

1,715,371

2,002,032

1,238,415

8,424,354

-3

8,424,351

1,823,821

19,004,973

207

19,005,180

8,067,673

-2673

8,065,000

643,756

11,374,540

11,374,543

3,458,819

-2

3,458,817

3,428,543

3,428,576

12,300,670

1,049,662

4,025,061

-112

4,024,949

756,874

5,700,037

-16

5,700,021

20,903,994

-30

20,903,964

2,236,714

2,236,743

609,890

7,100,702

-21

7,100,681

5,908,684

5,908,704

1,813,077

1,813,083

5,371,210

5,371,239

495,304

281,424,177

1,427

281,425,604

Seats

435

U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Census 2000 Shows Resident Population of

281,421,906; Apportionment Counts Delivered to President, Press Release CB00-CN.64 (Washington:

Dec. 28, 2000), table 1. (Please note that the apportionment population includes the foreign-based military

and other federal employees living overseas.)

U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Populations of States Including Count Question

Resolution (CQR) Corrections Through September 30, 2003, table provided at a briefing to congressional

staff on Sept. 30, 2003.

Figures calculated by CRS.

As noted above, the already narrow margin between the claims of North Carolina

and Utah for the 435th seat in the House would become even narrower if the CQR

program numbers were to be substituted for the official apportionment numbers. Utah’s

margin to gain a seat drops from 855 to 87 persons (see Table 2). The margin between

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the 435th and 436th seat was similarly close in the reapportionment following the 1970

Census. If Oklahoma had had 283 fewer persons, or Oregon had had 229 more persons,

Oklahoma would have lost a seat to Oregon. Unlike the present case, the margin would

have increased if corrected totals had been used for these states to 1,314 persons for

Oklahoma and 1,071 more persons for Oregon.

Table 2. Population Needed to Gain or Lose a Seat Using Census

Bureau September 30, 2003, Count Question Resolution Program

Numbers to Adjust the 2000 Census Apportionment Population

Rank

State

420

421

422

423

424

425

426

427

428

429

430

431

432

433

434

435

436

437

438

439

440

441

442

443

444

445

446

447

448

449

450

Pop. needed to gain or lose seat

Using official

Using

apportionment

revised

populationc

populationb

33,930,803 671,930.02 -1,324,952

-1,325,368

5,700,021 671,753.92

-221,143

-221,227

6,355,568 669,935.69

-229,996

-230,072

19,005,180 666,951.07

-605,789

-605,818

4,312,618 665,451.40

-128,056

-127,372

12,300,670 665,144.06

-359,731

-359,885

20,903,964 663,701.52

-567,227

-567,519

5,607,732 660,877.55

-128,854

-127,450

33,930,803 658,881.60

-679,229

-679,651

4,925,683 658,222.08

-93,767

-93,814

8,207,036 657,088.76

-142,345

-142,386

2,931,981 655,610.88

-44,359

-44,337

16,029,332 654,394.74

-213,172

-212,933

11,374,543 650,239.34

-79,546

-79,688

33,930,803 646,330.32

-33,507

-33,940

8,065,000 645,716.78

-309

-3,084

Last seat assigned by law

2,236,743 645,692.09

855

19,005,180 644,335.95

40,730

47,245

20,903,964 643,275.02

79,349

86,268

9,955,865 642,648.32

47,537

50,891

6,090,803 642,027.01

35,005

37,057

905,316 640,155.08

7,866

8,168

12,439,316 638,123.45

148,022

152,465

2,852,925 637,933.42

34,809

35,763

33,930,803 634,248.32

613,537

624,984

5,371,239 633,006.59

107,851

109,696

3,458,817 631,490.70

77,920

79,090

12,300,670 631,011.06

286,668

290,837

16,029,332 628,722.13

433,281

439,176

3,428,576 625,969.47

108,161

109,365

5,307,886 625,540.36

171,204

173,020

Revised

Seat apportionmen

t population

Priority

valuea

Each state’s claim to representation in the House is based on a “priority value” determined by the following

formula: PV = P / [n( n - 1 )]½; where PV = the state’s priority value, P = the state’s population, and n = the state’s nth

seat in the House. For example, the priority value of North Carolina’s 13th seat is:

8,065,000 / [13(13 - 1 ) ]½

PVNC13=

8,065,000/ [ 156 ]½

8,065,000 /12.489959967968

645,716.780219014

The actual seat assignments are made by ranking all of the states’ priority values from highest to lowest until 435 seats

are allocated.

These figures represent the population a state would need either to lose in order to drop below the 435th seat

cutoff, or to gain to rise above the cutoff. If, for example, North Carolina had 309 fewer persons in its population total,

the state’s priority value would decrease to 645,691.04, which would result in a new sequence number of 436 because

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Utah’s 4th seat would occupy the 435th position in the priority list. Similarly, if Utah had 87 more persons in its

population total, it would displace North Carolina, because Utah’s priority value would become 645.716.91.

These figures show how many more or fewer persons would have been necessary for states to gain or lose a

seat based on the official apportionment figures sent to the President and released on December 28, 2000.

Source: Computations of priority values and persons needed for states to gain or lose a seat by CRS. See CRS

Report RL30711, The House Apportionment Formula in Theory and Practice, by David C. Huckabee, for an

explanation of formula for allocating House seats.

Could the CQR Changes Shift a House Seat?

As noted previously, the preliminary CQR corrections released on September 30,

2003, would not alter the apportionment of House seats when compared to the official

results, and the Census Bureau does not plan to alter the official apportionment figures.

If further corrections would change the apportionment, there are 19th-century precedents

for the Congress to change apportionments after the initial results have been released.

In 1852, Congress increased California’s delegation by one Representative because

it appear[ed] “that the returns of the population of California are incomplete.”8 Section

2 of the act provided that if “at any future decennial enumeration of the inhabitants of the

United States, the census of any district or subdivision in the United States shall have

been improperly taken, or if the returns of any district or subdivision shall be accidentally

lost or destroyed, the Secretary of the Interior shall have power to order a new

enumeration of such district or subdivision.”9

Additional Representatives were added to the totals initially provided by the

reapportionment acts following the 1860 and 1870 censuses. Eight states received one

additional seat by a supplemental apportionment act approved in March 1862.10 Another

supplemental apportionment act enacted in May 1872, assigned one additional

Representative each to nine states.11

When Congress accepted challenges to census results, the 19th-century precedent was

to increase the size of the House, not to take seats from states. There are no examples

similar to the 19th-century precedents noted above in the 20th century, but the last time

new states were admitted between censuses, the House size was temporarily increased to

437 until the next reapportionment, when it became 435 again.12

If further refinement of the 2000 Census data reveals that the apportionment would

be changed if the corrected numbers were to be used instead of those used in December

2000, Congress could alter the apportionment by legislation.

10 Stat. 25.

Ibid.

12 Stat. 353.

17 Stat. 192.

By authority of section 9 of P.L. 85-508 (72 Stat. 345) and section 8 of P.L. 86-3 (73 Stat. 8),

which admitted Alaska and Hawaii to statehood, the House size was temporarily increased to 437

until the reapportionment following the 1960 census, when it returned to 435.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.