Topic-Congressional Districts
In the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 2., Clause 3., addresses the question of congressional representation of congressional reapportionment every ten years, requires a census. The Constitution provides for the apportionment of House seats among the states on the basis of their respective populations. The number of House seats per state is based on census results, though each state is guaranteed at least one seat. If a state census report has an average population increase of 700,000, the state is guaranteed an additional House of Representative. [In 1929, a federal law fixed House membership at 435 members. The lines of congressional districts are drawn by the authority of state legislatures.]
Malapportionment: In Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), the Supreme Court held that congressional districts must have equal populations: “one person, one vote.” In 1965 the Nevada legislature failure to apportion the state senate legislative seats led Flora Dungan, a member of the assembly from Las Vegas, to filed suit, and won in a federal court case (Dungan v. Sawyer) because the Nevada state legislature had over-representation in rural counties and under-representation in the populous urban counties. This unequal discrepancy in representation is called malapportionment. http://www.onlinenevada.org/flora_dungan (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..
Population increase in a state drives congressional reapportionment: The 2000 census report an increase of population of 1,998,257; up from the 1990 census population report of 1,201,833. This population increase called for a special election in 2002 which included on the ballot the new 3rd Congressional district contest. [The 2010 census population reported for Nevada was 2,700,551. The US Census Bureau estimates that the population of Nevada was 2,890,845 on July 1, 2015]
See Nevada’s 3rd Congressional district:
In 2002 Jon Porter won election as House of Representative in the new 3rd district Congressional race. (That district seat was held by Dina Titus in 2008, and was succeeded by Joe Heck in the 2010 election. Heck is currently running for the open Nevada US Senate seat in 2016.)
Nevada’s 2010 increase in population gave the state another opportunity for Congressional district apportionment. The state’s demographic department estimated Nevada’s total population reached 2,495, 529 in 2006; and the department estimated population of 3, 087,000 by 2010, which is the year of the federal census. This represents 1 percent of the projected population of the United States in 2010 and gave Nevada a fourth member in the U.S. House of Representatives starting in 2012 (This district seat is held by former Nevada state legislator Cresent Hardy).
See Nevada’s 4th Congressional district:
The Nevada Legislature is responsible for establishing the districts of Nevada’s members of Congress, as well as the districts of the members of the State Board of Education and the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. http://www.onlinenevada.org/representation_and_redistricting_of_the_nevada_legislature (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
See: Nevada’s 4th Congressional District Map:
- Discuss what would happen to states if they did not carry out their centennial census process to add congressional district House seats based on their respective population
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