The impacts of apportionment method, and legal and illegal immigration, on Congressional apportionment in the year 2000 Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • This paper first discusses two methods for apportioning the US House of Representatives, Equal Proportions and Major Fractions. The method of Equal Proportions will be used in the 2000 apportionment, but it is biased in favor of smaller states. The method of Major Fractions is a mathematically unbiased method, but will not be used in 2000. However, we show that apportionments for 2000 would not differ much according to these two methods. We also consider different definitions of the apportionment population, mainly based on including or excluding legal and illegal immigrants from the apportionment process. We show that the apportionment results for 2000 will not differ if illegal immigrants who entered the USA in the 1990s are kept in, or removed from, the apportionment population. But the apportionment results will differ in a major way if all persons immigrating to the USA in the 1990s are kept in, or removed.

published proceedings

  • POPULATION RESEARCH AND POLICY REVIEW

author list (cited authors)

  • Poston, D. L., Bouvier, L. F., & Dan, H.

complete list of authors

  • Poston, DL||Bouvier, LF||Dan, H

publication date

  • January 1999