How Congressional Representation Works — and Why the House Is Frozen at 435

Democracy & Governance
Written By Cassie

How a century-old cap quietly reshapes political power

The number of people in Congress looks fixed and neutral. It isn’t. The House of Representatives was capped at 435 members nearly a century ago, and the population has more than tripled since. Instead of expanding representation as the country grew, the system redistributes a fixed number of seats among states every ten years. That choice determines whose votes carry more weight, which states gain or lose power, and why representation feels stretched in fast-growing places — without ever changing the headline number.

  • Congressional representation runs on two different rules. The Senate is fixed by statehood, with every state receiving two senators regardless of population. The House is population-based, but only within a hard cap set by federal law. The total number of House seats is locked at 435 and redistributed among states after each census.

    This structure makes representation zero-sum. When one state gains a seat, another state must lose one. Population growth does not add representation overall. It only rearranges where existing power sits.

  • Every ten years, the census counts how many people live in each state. Those counts feed into a statutory formula, the method of equal proportions, which assigns the 435 House seats across the states. Each state receives one guaranteed seat, and the remaining seats are distributed based on population ratios until the cap is reached.

    As the population grows, districts get larger rather than more numerous. In the early 1900s, a House member represented roughly 200,000 people. Today, the average district represents more than 760,000. The system tracks population precisely, but it does not scale representation proportionally.

  • Congress controls the size of the House. In 1929, it permanently capped membership at 435 seats. That number is statutory, not constitutional, and Congress retains the authority to change it at any time.

    States do not vote on the size of the House, and voters do not either. The cap persists because changing it requires congressional action, and the current structure advantages some states and districts more than others. In this system, inaction functions as policy.

  • A fixed House size produces consistent effects. Vote weight diverges as voters in smaller states are represented by fewer people per House member than voters in larger states. That imbalance carries into presidential elections through the Electoral College, which is built on House seats plus Senate seats.

    Representation also thins as districts grow. Larger districts mean less constituent access, heavier reliance on staff and fundraising, and weaker direct accountability. Population growth creates political losers as well. Fast-growing states compete for a limited number of seats and can grow substantially without gaining proportional influence, while slower-growing states retain power longer than their population share would suggest. California’s loss of a House seat after the 2020 census reflects this dynamic. These outcomes are not side effects. They are the system operating as designed.

  • These sources explain how House apportionment works, why the size of the House is capped, and how population growth affects representation.

Cassie
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