Congressional Apportionment Amendment
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The Congressional Apportionment Amendment was, and remains, a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. It was the first of twelve amendments offered by the 1st Congress on September 25, 1789, to the state legislatures for ratification pursuant to Article V of the Constitution. It pertains to the division of seats among the states in the United States House of Representatives following each decennial census.
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[edit] Text and purpose of the amendment
The Congressional Apportionment Amendment reads as follows:
Article the first...After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.
The Amendment seeks to make certain that seats in the House of Representatives are reapportioned according to population every ten years, but given the current population of the United States, the algorithm that it sets forth would now place very few restrictions on the size of the House. Were this amendment to be ratified today, it would allow anywhere between 200 and over 6,000 Representatives. Currently, there are 435 members of the House of Representatives and six non-voting Delegates from the District of Columbia and the Territories that do not possess statehood status. The 435 figure is set by statute (2 U.S.C. 2a & 2b) and the allocation of seats among the 50 states is calculated by using what is called the "method of equal proportions."
[edit] Background and history
By 1791, the legislatures of a sufficient number of states had ratified the last ten of the twelve proposed amendments, which became the Bill of Rights, but not the first two.
The second of the twelve amendments, which concerned Congressional compensation, was finally ratified more than two centuries later in 1992 and belatedly became the 27th Amendment.
The Congressional Apportionment Amendment, however, was ratified by the legislatures of only the following eleven states—just shy of the thirteen required during the late 1700s:
- New Jersey on November 20, 1789
- Maryland on December 19, 1789
- North Carolina on December 22, 1789
- South Carolina on January 19, 1790
- New Hampshire on January 25, 1790
- New York on March 27, 1790
- Rhode Island on June 15, 1790
- Pennsylvania on September 21, 1791 (after rejecting it on March 10, 1790)
- Virginia on October 25, 1791 (a few weeks prior to the date on which Virginia ratified what is today the 27th Amendment as well as those ten amendments that became the Bill of Rights on December 15 of that year)
- Vermont on November 3, 1791 and
- Kentucky on June 24, 1792
Although the act, on the part of state legislatures, of "rejecting" a proposed constitutional amendment has no legal recognition, such action does have political implications—the Congressional Apportionment Amendment was rejected by lawmakers in Delaware on January 28, 1790.
No action is known to have occurred with regard to this particular Amendment by legislators in Connecticut, Georgia or Massachusetts.
According to the Supreme Court's ruling in the 1939 case of Coleman v. Miller, because there is no deadline for its ratification, the Congressional Apportionment Amendment is technically still pending before state lawmakers. Today, with 50 states in the Union, the legislatures of 27 more states, for a total of 38, would have to ratify the Amendment in order for it to become part of the federal Constitution. Based on the current U.S. population and the traditions governing the size of the House of Representatives, it is unlikely, however, that the legislatures of any additional states will approve it.
[edit] See also
- List of amendments to the United States Constitution
- List of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution
- Unsuccessful attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution
[edit] References
- Congressional Research Service. (1992). Proposed amendments not ratified by the states. In The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation. (Senate Document No. 103–6). (Johnny H. Killian and George A. Costello, Eds.). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
[edit] External links
- The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation is available at:
- GPO Access - Official version of the document at the U.S. Government Printing Office.
- FindLaw – FindLaw's version of the official document; incorporates 1996 and 1998 supplements into text, but does not include prefatory material included in official version.
