Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/118th_United_States_Congress

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_census

TOOL: CANVA.COM

A few months back, I made this post comparing this phenomenon to how it is in the EU Parliament.

Yes its interesting considering that states get to choose their own congressional districts, effectively letting the states 'pick' who they will send to congress. The US House is much closer to a 2nd Senate than representative of 'the people'.

If im from Delaware for example, Im very mad about that.

Yeah, my post showed how it's even crazier in Europe.

For example, Malta gets one representative for every 86,017 people, whereas Germany gets one representative for every 866,198 people. So, effectively, a person from Malta has 10x the voting power as someone from Germany.

In your scenario, if Congress expanded to match the representation Montana gets, it would be expanding from 435 seats to 610.

If the EU expanded to match the representation Malta gets, it would be expanding from 750 seats to 5,197.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I'd also like to note that from 2012-2022, Montana was the state with the least amount of representation. It switched from "least" to "most" by picking up a seat following the 2020 census.

Thats very undemocratic. What is so special about Malta?

It's small, and the EU has a minimum number of seats a country gets (six).

Again, comparing it to Germany's "1 for every 866,198":

• Luxembourg gets 1 for every 105,788
• Cyprus gets 1 for every 149,335
• Estonia gets 1 for every 190,010
• Slovenia gets 1 for every 233,622

so on so forth

I'm a little confused. Delaware has 1.003 million people and one house representative, and Montana has 1.104 million people and...also has one house representative. How does Montana have 80% more representation when it has a larger population but the same number of representatives? I'm not saying you're incorrect, I just don't understand what context I am missing.

Another statement here that is throwing me off is the assertion "it favors the smallest states". While the most represented states are fairly small, the least represented states are also pretty small too: Delaware, Idaho, West Virginia, Utah, and Iowa. None of the *30* largest states are even in the bottom 5. In fact, if we look towards the middle of the chart, it appears that large states like California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, North Carolina, Texas, etc are right around the average. And in the "above average" column, we find Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon, and South Carolina - all of which are in the top half of states by population save for Oregon (27th). It seems like being a small state might do you some favors, but being a small state might also mean you're at the bottom of the chart too. And if you're a large state, you'll probably be somewhere in the middle.

Thats why its better to use averages to demonstrate a point. And no -Montana doesn't have 'one representative'.

Montana had one representative until this year, and now they have two. But they also have a larger population than Delaware, which would understandably mean they would get the seat first.

And yes, I get using averages, I’m not contesting that - but your assertion made it sound like the chart would move from large states to small states, when the dataset provided really showed it going from small states to large states to some medium ones and small again. West Virginia and Delaware and Idaho certainly don’t seem to be favored

Thats why I used the phrase "on average" to demonstrate the point.

It depends on the point your trying to make. Average isn’t always the best analytical metric.

You’re leaving out a lot of context though. And given your hostile response to any criticism, it feels like you’re more focused on pushing a narrative than you are genuinely trying to explain allocations of representatives

I understand your criticism but I cant alter the data so that it fits someone elses perspective, that would be lying.

Nice try. Nobody asked you to alter data, or has questioned the validity of the data, im asking you to explain your own personal interpretations of it that you slid in to it. Leave the data be. I’m talking about your subjective claims about it that seem to be slightly Dubious

name one thing that this data doesnt prove

You keep talking about the data when you know that’s not what I’m criticizing. Im questioning YOUR subjective interpretations of the data that you typed out. And I’ve already typed an entire paragraph explaining why I felt your analysis was leaving context out. At this point it feels like you’re being purposely facetious

Just so everyone understands how the house works:

The Census Bureau does a Census every 10 years - the Commerce Dept uses the Census results to proportion house members between the 50 states.

In the 1990 census Montana had no growth - so they lost one of their two house seats.

In the 2020 census Montana showed a grow rate of over 20% = this resulted in them getting their seat back that they had lost in 1993.

In 2022 - Montana will have 2 senators and 2 house members.

Delaware's population over the past 10 years grew at about 1/2 of the pace of Montana... Delaware has 980k (approx) vs 1.084 million for Montana. Rhode Island is also ahead of DE in terms of population.

So bottom line... it works.

By the way - the reallocation was done under Biden. Not Trump. The split of Montana into two districts was done by the state of Montana - if if anyone thinks that a D was going to win either seat - I have some really great swampland in jersey for sale - cheap.

You are free to make your own posts.

We just had a map on this yesterday.

OMG, you’re right! Let’s give more power to New York and California. That will be great. 👍

How does having 2 reps instead of 1 grant you more representation in a congress of 435?

0 x 2 = 0

Even right now in a fairly split congress, you are 2/9ths of a potential swing vote. You'd need 4 additional over-represented small states fully on your side.

You do have equal representation in the senate, by design.

I'm not sure what this is trying to say. What do the bars represent? At first I thought it was a proportion but Montana doesn't go to one. KY/AK the middle states which have the line of 32.5% (the number that matches with your Y axis) seem to be 3 or 4 times the size of Delaware, not 32.5%x.

I understand that states are given representatives at a ratio of one rep per appx. 750k people. No state is able to be exactly divided into 750k people, so some states are going to be slightly over and slightly under that number. Couldn't the variance be ascribed to random chance?

This thing has is a hot mess. Where's the label on the y-axis?

Why shouldn't everyone have equal representation?

Now do the senate. CA says fuck you all.

This is because not all states have populations evenly divisible by 760000. For example if state A has a population of 1.125 million that would corespondent to 1.5ish representatives, but since there’s no such thing as half a representative, either 1 or 2 must be chosen, and either way it will be disproportionate. With smaller states, the inaccuracy means more proportionally as 2 is twice as big as 1, but 53 is only 1.02x as big as 52.

A similar thing happens with states that have populations below 760000. No matter how disproportionate, states are always given at least one representative, because the alternative of giving them none is insane.

This is why, if you actually looked at your own data, you would find that small states are also the most underrepresented while most big states are near the middle. The house does not benefit small states, it was designed specifically to be as proportional as possible.

There are lots of disproportionate institutions in America, but the house is not one of them.

This was the only way the larger states could convince the smaller states to join in the union. One would not want to live in Nevada and have every vote on federal level be decided by Florida. I understand a pure democracy is simple and seems fair but we have a representative democracy with some complexities like this and it is by design.

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More? You mean an equal share

Yes I made one 4 days ago but we are only allowed to post 1 day a week for "political" posts

Lol politicians represent themselves and the corporations and banks that paid to put them there. The sooner the public wakes up to this illusion of choice the sooner we'll get out of this mess.

This is pretty hard to interpret without label or explanation of what exactly what the y-axis represents…

theres a big black bar labeling it

I don't question that it's by design, but I can question if there are better designs available -- designs that optimize for a greater overall level of happiness for the citizens of a society. It seems suspect from the get-go -- if that's the only way the larger states could convince the smaller states to join, perhaps that's red flag on the overall premise.

If you could actually design a system from the ground-up, would you actually give some people a larger voice based purely on the number of people who live around them? Seems less than ideal.

This posted yesterday seems to suggest that it’s Rhode Island and not Montana that is the most over represented.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/104fd75/oc_the_number_of_representatives_in_the_us/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Unless these are completely different things and I’m mistaken.

They are using different population data. Montana is most over-represented by about 10k people using the data I have. I actually made that same kind of post 5 days ago.

They compared 1M population vs # of reps, probably because they saw my post. I compared Montana to all other states so the percentages are slightly different.

The needs of Texas are different than the need of Vermont. You should not disregard the needs of Vermont just because Texas is larger.

The easiest way to combat this would be to increase the number of representatives in The House. Congress hasn’t increased it from 435 for over 110 years even though the country as a whole has nearly quadrupled in population in the same time.

One way to do this would be to have the number of representatives correspond to the least populous state. Taking the population of the US in 2020 divided by the population of Wyoming in 2020 would give us 575 members. This would lessen the disparity highlighted on this graph.

This would take an act of Congress to do and not even an amendment to The U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately Congress is controlled by power hungry members and this would dilute their power so it won’t get passed anytime soon.

If Rhode Island has less people than Montana and both have two U.S. House reps wouldn’t Rhode Island be the more over-over represented state?

yes but the data I have shows MT with fewer people.

https://old.reddit.com/r/EndFPTP/comments/101b8wz/the_us_house_of_representatives_favors_the/

Sure, I agree completely. But it doesn't necessarily follow that the needs of the citizens of a state are disregarded by giving everyone's voice the same weight.

I get what you're saying, but that's the result of how our government is set up, and not inherently a result of giving everyone an equal vote.

It could of course easily be argued that currently the needs of the citizens of the larger states are being disregarded at the preference for the smaller states).

** Edited for clarity

I think Rhode Island just took this crown from Montana and based on the latest census data from last July:

Rhode Island: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/RI

Montana: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/MT

Rhode Island has about 30,000 fewer people than Montana.

The 2020 census conducted by the Trump administration was very inaccurate and the Biden administration has had to go back and fix the numbers in the new 2022 revisions.

The Rhode Island census was actually egregiously over counted by Trump officials

https://www.wpri.com/news/politics/ri-overcounted-population-in-2020-census-federal-study-finds/

>Congress hasn’t increased it from 435 for over 110 years

Another legacy of Woodrow Wilson.

There are many contenders for worst president ever but for me, he tops the chart easily.

Was he against increasing the number of House seats?

If you believe the freezing of House seats was at least partially motivated by racism and fear of the growing black population, it would certainly match with what we know of Wilson.

His opponent in the 1912 election, Taft, was also the last president to sign a bill increasing the number of House seats so there's that.

Wonder why no subsequent President raised it since though

Because everyone has just accepted the state of things and it hasn't become that big of an issue.

Yes, it's an issue but it's not something that greatly affects the daily lives of many. At least not in an immediate sense.

Hense why we need to have more members in the house of representatives, 1 person representing 700k is not all all representitive/some states have only 1 representitive meaning its effectively a winner takes all

This is not so bad. What is really terrible is the senate.

Great to see all states are protected and have a voice

Some more than others, by 80% in the case of Montana!

Delaware is baseline 0, not "1"