I just noticed this about the Congressional Apportionment Amendment
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  I just noticed this about the Congressional Apportionment Amendment
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Author Topic: I just noticed this about the Congressional Apportionment Amendment  (Read 416 times)
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jfern
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« on: May 01, 2020, 02:08:19 AM »

It's poorly worded, but from Wikipedia there is a more general formula that the amendment hints at but doesn't state.

Quote
Historians (myself included) and political scientists, following the lead of Clinton Rossiter’s 1966 study of the American founding, have misunderstood and overlooked Madison’s unratified first amendment, some assuming incorrectly that it would have fixed congressional districts at 50,000 inhabitants. Such a mandate would have required an unwieldy body of 5,200 representatives by the last decade of the twentieth century. In reality, Madison’s formula was far more modest. After the 1990 U.S. census, district size would have been set at 170,000 rather than 572,467 residents, and the House of Representatives would have had 1,465 members. Twenty years later, in response to the 2010 census, the formula would have raised the size of districts to 190,000, instead of the average size of 710,767, and the House would have had 1,625 members, in place of the current 435-seat limit.

— Kyvig, David E.., " Explicit and Authentic Acts ", Chapter 19, University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-2229-0” (2016)

For 2010 census, there would be around 1625 districts of 190,000.
Hey, it'd still be smaller than the Chinese National People's Congress.
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Former President tack50
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« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2020, 07:28:08 PM »

Quote
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

Looking at the text, it seems to me that the infamous "1 represenatative for every 50 000 people" part was intended to be a maximum number of representatives?

So basically the amendment only really seems to force Congress to pass a bill to set the number of representatives between 200 and 6300 or whichever number of representatives would mean 1 for every 50 000.

So I assume if ratified nothing would really change in the end?
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