Cube root rule
The cube root rule is a proposal to increase the size of the United States House of Representatives so that the number of representatives would be the cube root of the U.S. population as calculated in the most recent census. Under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, each U.S. 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 House will continue to increase unless the House (which size has been fixed at 435 since 1913, except for a brief period from 1959 to 1963) is expanded.
The cube root rule has been applied to many national legislatures and parliaments since it was first devised by Rein Taagepera, an Estonian political scientist.
Legal basis for current House size
The current size of the house was set by 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 This law would need to be repealed and replaced in order to change the number of congressional members, which would require a majority of both houses of Congress to approve it.
Historical House sizes
The following table describes how the House of Representatives would have looked like historically, had the Cube Root Rule been adopted as part of the Reapportionment Act of 1929, instead of fixing the size at 435 representatives.
| Census, Year | Size |
|---|---|
| 15th, 1930 | 497 |
| 16th, 1940 | 509 |
| 17th, 1950 | 532 |
| 18th, 1960 | 564 |
| 19th, 1970 | 588 |
| 20th, 1980 | 610 |
| 21st, 1990 | 629 |
| 22nd, 2000 | 655 |
| 23rd, 2010 | 676 |
| Census, Year | Size |
See also
- United States Constitution
- Article One of the United States Constitution
- United States congressional apportionment
- United States House of Representatives
- List of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution
- List of U.S. states and territories by population
- Apportionment
- Wyoming Rule