When the delegates at the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia the debate over representation in Congress was the most contentious. The delegates initially recommended that the states should be entitled to one representative for every 40,000. George Washington then addressed the convention and suggested that the ratio should be 30,000 to 1 and his proposal was accepted.
In Article 1 Section 2 Clause 3 it states that there shall not be more than one representative for bodies of 30,000. It was their intent to limit the size of Congressional Districts to no more than 30,000.
The number of representatives could not exceed 1 in 30,000 and the number of constituents could not exceed 30,000 for each representative.
The word apportionment means to divide or allocate equally. In Article it states that the states shall be entitled to representation based on their population.
At this time Montana has a population of 1,074,532 and is entitled to 35.81 seats in the House of Representatives. Today, has just 1 representative and there are 34 vacant seats.
The legislature of the state should divide their population in the 2020 census and divide by 30,000 to determine the number of Congressional Districts to be created in their state. Montana would be entitled to have 36 districts and there would be 35 vacant seats.
The Governor of state has the Constitutional authority to people to fill those seats until an election can be held.
The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, fixed the number of Representatives at 435. The states are entitled to a number of seats based on their population. In order to guarantee that the states were being properly represented the districts in all states needed to be equal in size,
The Congressional Apportionment Act of 2020 would repeal the Permanent Apportionment Act if 1929 and restore fair and adequate representation to all of the states.
According to the project Census for 2020 we will have a population of 359,000,000 and if we had one representative for every 30,000 the House of Representatives would have 11,967 members.
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