Warm-Up
• What do you already know about Congress
and representation?
• What questions do you have about Congress
and representation?
The House of Representatives
Essential Question: Does the
constitutional model of representation
provide effective representation
today?
Article I, Section 1
• “All legislative powers herein granted shall be
vested in a Congress…”
• Article II, Section 2 = “The executive power shall
be vested in a President…”
• The Constitution grants Congress with the most
power, therefore powers are specifically listed
out and Congress is divided into two chambers
Article I, Section 2
• The House of Representatives
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2 year terms
Directly elected by the people
25+ years old
A citizen for 7+ years
Resident of the state they will be a rep for
1 representative for every 30,000 residents in a state
(all states get at least 1 representative)
– Reps choose the Speaker of the House
– The House has the power to impeach (Senate has the
power of removal from office)
Closest to the People
• Short terms cause
Representatives to be
attentive to their
constituents
• Always in “re-election
mode”
• Hold an office in their
district in their state and
report to Capitol Hill
• Responsible to advocate
for the constituents in
their district in federal
matters
• Legislative district – territorial areas partitioned on
a map designating areas of representation by a
legislative body
• Apportionment – the determination of the # of
members in the House according to the proportion
of the population of each state to the total
population of the U.S.
• Gerrymander – Drawing a district with boundaries
that favor one more groups of voters and/or some
candidates over others
– Partisan gerrymandering: favors one political
party over others
– Racial gerrymandering: favors one racial group
over others
Constitution Convention
• Established a system of apportionment where
states are divided into separate legislative districts ;
each district must have roughly the same # of
people
• Art. I, Sec. 2 requires a Census to be taken every 10
years to account for the total number of people
living in a state
– 1 representative “awarded” for every 30,000
people
• Reapportionment takes place after the Census to
adjust the House to demographic changes
Early Politics
• Governor Elbridge Gerry
had Massachusetts’
congressional districts
redrawn to strengthen
his political party in 1812
• Elkanah Tisdale, a
political cartoonist,
created a cartoon of
these districts that
resembled a salamander
19th Century Developments
• American growth and expansion required redistricting after each Census
to keep up with the growing population and demographic shifts
Caps on the Total Number of Seats
• 1911 – Congress caps
that number of seats in
the House at 433
• Arguments ensue after
the 1920 Census on the
appropriate formula for
reapportionment
• 1929 – Congress finally
settles on a cap of 435
seats for the House
Civil Rights Movement
• Baker v. Carr (1962) – 14th Amendment’s equal protection
clause requires districts to be equal in population so that
one person’s vote would not weigh more than another
person’s vote
– “one person, one vote”
• Voting Rights Act (1965) – states with a history of
discriminatory voting practices had to get preclearance from
the federal government before redrawing their district lines
• Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Miller v. Johnson (1999) confirmed
that racial gerrymandering was unconstitutional, however
partisan gerrymandering is not
Current Movement to Standing
Committees
• States such as Washington,
California, and Arizona have
created standing committees
that include citizens for the
purpose of redistricting
• CA Prop 11 (2008) authorized the
creation of the California Citizens
Redistricting Commission
• CA Prop 20 (2010) empowered
the California Citizens
Redistricting Commission to
redraw the boundaries of CA’s
congressional districts
How it Works
You try!
R
R
R
D
D
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D
D
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R
D
D
R
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R
D
D
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R
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Create 5 congressional
districts for the state to
favor the Republican
Party
One person, one vote
dictates that there
must be at least 4 and
no more than 5
counties in each
congressional district
A district’s
geographical span
must be contiguous
You try!
R
R
R
D
D
R
D
D
R
R
D
D
R
R
R
R
D
D
D
D
R
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R
D
Create 5 congressional
districts for the state to
favor the Democratic
Party
One person, one vote
dictates that there
must be at least 4 and
no more than 5
counties in each
congressional district
A district’s
geographical span
must be contiguous
Reading
• The Great Gerrymander of 2012
• Now That’s What I Call Gerrymandering!