Wyoming Rule


The Wyoming Rule is a proposal to increase the size of the United States [House of Representatives] so that the standard representative-to-population ratio would be that of the state with the least population, which is currently Wyoming. Under Article One of [the United States Constitution|Article One] of the United States Constitution, each state is guaranteed at least one representative. If the disparity between the population of the most and least populous states continues to grow, the disproportionality of the U.S. House of Representatives will continue to increase unless the body, whose size has been fixed at 435 since 1929, is expanded.
A total of 543 seats would have been required to implement the Wyoming Rule based on the 2010 [United States census] results. However, the decade leading up to the 2020 United States census saw Wyoming's population increase at a lower rate than that of the rest of the United States; as a result, the required House size to implement the Wyoming Rule will increase to 574. Under the Wyoming Rule, California would gain the most seats with seventeen more members than it will have after the next reapportionment.

Legal and constitutional basis for the current House of Representatives size

The current size of the House was set by the Reapportionment Act of 1929. This law would need to be repealed and replaced in order to change the number of congressional members, which would require a majority of both houses of Congress to approve it. From a constitutional standpoint, the only restriction on House size is that there can be at most one representative per thirty thousand people, which limits the maximum size of Congress to roughly 11,000 representatives.

Under the 2020 U.S. census

The chart set out below identifies the number of House seats that would be given to the respective states if the Wyoming Rule were to be implemented using the population numbers from the 2020 United States census.
South Dakota with its two seats and an average of 443,885 people per seat would have the most seats per capita. North Dakota's lone seat would have the fewest seats per capita. This gives a ratio of 1 to 1.75654 between greatest and smallest number of persons per seat. By comparison, it will be 1 to 1.82574 for the lone seat of Delaware and Montana's two seats.
Of the six states that currently have a single seat, Delaware and South Dakota would gain one seat. The other four—Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, and Vermont—would continue to have one seat.

Historical House sizes

The following table describes how the House of Representatives would have looked historically, had the Wyoming Rule been adopted as part of the Reapportionment Act of 1929, instead of fixing the size at 435 representatives.
Census, YearSizeALAKAZARCACOCTDEFLGAHIIDILINIAKSKYLAMEMDMAMIMNMSMOMTNENVNHNJNMNYNCNDOHOKORPARISCSDTNTXUTVTVAWAWVWIWY
15th, 19301,41831–52266121931734–58838292230249194956302342616154751463787728111128208306764281820343
16th, 19401,19126–51863101621728–5723123162621817394825203451215385122326632110907176275853241617292
17th, 195094019–5126681321722–45425161218176152940191425481330493254501410665134214842211513222
18th, 19607931416870811222173345211210131441423351510193613274742034310850411316424218138182
19th, 197067211166667102231532371798111231319291371625232436017235973939213374215116151
20th, 1980567101765978224142229147691131114231061224221834415227873028212364113105121
21st, 19905499185657722914322512668931113211061124321734015124762628211374114114111
22nd, 200057191105699723217332512658931113201061124431743816123772528212425114124111
23rd, 20105439111566962331723231155882101217951123521643417120772228111455114123101
24th, 2020574911256910623719332212658821112181051123521643518120772329212516115133101
Census, YearSizeALAKAZARCACOCTDEFLGAHIIDILINIAKSKYLAMEMDMAMIMNMSMOMTNENVNHNJNMNYNCNDOHOKORPARISCSDTNTXUTVTVAWAWVWIWY

The smallest state in each census since 1930 were:
  • Nevada
  • Alaska
  • Wyoming

    Possible effects

While expanding the House would reduce the average disparity in district size, it would not necessarily reduce the disparity between the smallest and largest districts. After the 1990 United States census and with a House size of 435, the largest district had 803,655 residents, 76.3% larger than the smallest district with 455,975 residents. The Wyoming Rule would have given a House size of 549 in 1990 if the former method of seat apportionment had been used. With that size, the largest district would have had 641,364 residents, 91.8% larger than the smallest districts at 334,348 residents each, due to Delaware having enough population to be split in two but North Dakota falling just on the other side of the threshold.