November Question

While at first glance, congressional apportionment may not seem “fair”, it is actually almost as fair as it can be.  Unfortunately, I do not believe that any change to the way apportionment works will satisfy everyone. Apportionment of the House of Representatives has been used since the first census in 1790.  Although, they have not always done it the same way, with a total of five methods having been used. Previous methods had allowed for the number of representatives to vary depending on the population of each state.  Now, the method only allows for a total of 435 seats (Computing Apportionment).

There is no way to make every aspect of congressional apportionment “fair”.  Mathematicians and politicians combined created the most recent method of apportionment.  A complex formula is used to assign the remaining 385 seats after one seat is assigned to each state (How Each…).  The District of Columbia does not have assigned seats in an effort to prevent people who work for the government in Washington from having too much an influence on the government.

After the trial of multiple methods of apportionment over the past 228 years, the current method has been the most fair, by assigning “priority values” (Computing Apportionment).  I believe the only way to improve the method is to solve other problems or make change in the government. For those concerned about the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam, they should focus on gaining voting rights for those territories before changing the apportionment method.

Works Cited

Longley, Robert. “How Each State’s Number of US Representatives Is Determined.” Thoughtco.Dotdash, n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2018.

U.S. Census Bureau. “Computing Apportionment.” Census Bureau QuickFacts. United States Census Bureau, 21 May 2012. Web. 05 Dec. 2018.