Apportionment Legislation 1890 - Present - History

Apportionment Legislation 1890 - Present

An Act Providing for Apportionment following the 1890 Census (February 7, 1891) Download PDF [295KB PDF]
- Increased the size of the House of Representatives to 356 seats. These seats were apportioned among the states using the Webster and Hamilton/Vinton Methods, which agree at this chamber size.
- 1890 Apportionment Results and Notes.
An Act Providing for Apportionment following the 1900 Census (January 16, 1901) Download PDF [174KB PDF]
- Increased the size of the House of Representatives to 386 seats.
- 1900 Apportionment Results and Notes.
An Act Fixing the Size of the House of Representatives (August 8, 1911) Download PDF [400KB PDF]
- Sets the size of the House of Representatives at 433 seats, with an additional one seat each allowed for the soon-to-be-states of Arizona and New Mexico, when they were admitted into the Union.
- 1910 Apportionment Results and Notes.
Reapportionment and Census Act of 1929 (June 18, 1929) Download PDF [840KB PDF] and The Act Providing for the Fifteenth Census and for the Apportionment of Representatives in Congress Download PDF [749KB PDF]
- After Congress, dominated by rural politicians who stood to lose clout in a quickly urbanizing nation, failed to reapportion its seats following the 1920 census, this law set the process in place so that apportionment would occur automatically following the 1930 enumeration. The size of the House remained at 435 seats.
- 1930 Apportionment Results and Notes.
An Act Providing for Apportionment following the 1940 Census (April 25, 1940) Download PDF [120KB PDF]
- Made reapportionment of the House of Representatives automatic, using the same method as the previous apportionment, unless Congress intervenes.
- 1940 Apportionment Results and Notes.
An Act Setting the Apportionment Method for Future Censuses (November 15, 1941) Download PDF [220KB PDF]
- Provided for the automatic reapportionment of the House of Representative's 435 seats following each census, using the Huntington-Hill/Equal Proportions Method.
- 1940 Apportionment Results and Notes.