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Determining House Districts

Determining House Districts. The Intersection of Politics and “Creative” Drawing… . Part1 : Determine the # of Reps in each state. **To start off the process, we have to know the total population of the US…. How would we determine the total population of the US?

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Determining House Districts

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  1. Determining House Districts The Intersection of Politics and “Creative” Drawing…

  2. Part1: Determine the # of Reps in each state **To start off the process, we have to know the total population of the US…. • How would we determine the total population of the US? • 1) Take a census of the US = about 293 million Once we know this number, we have our starting point…

  3. Now we need to know how many people will be in each/every district • We first must determine a “target” number of how many people per district on average • How might we determine that “target” # (the # of people that would be in any/every district)? 2) Divide the total population by the # of Houseseats

  4. The Target #Average number of people in each district… • Target # = 293,000,000 / 435 • Target # = About 670,000 people per district

  5. The number of districts per State • Once we know average population of each district, we can then determine how many we should give to each state. • 3) Divide the population of each state by the target #

  6. How many districts would PA get? PA pop. (13 million) / 670,000# = of PA districts • What is the number? (you already know it…)

  7. Handing out the seats **At this point, the math is done and Congress distributes the seats to each state…. • 4) Apportionment – distributing seats to each state based on answer to #3 **Every 10 years, seats are reapportioned according to changes in state populations • As the population of the US increases generally, what happens to the “target #”? • Do you think the target # might ever get “too large”? • What might have to happen then?

  8. Part 2: Drawing New District Boundaries (if necessary) • **State legislatures have the job of drawing boundaries for US House districts • Both Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature draw up a plan for district boundaries • They will use census data, such as party affiliation, voting records, and race and religious data to help them. • A vote is taken to approve a plan (maj plan wins)

  9. The Basic Rules • Because of abuses by states, the Supreme Court has ruled that when drawing districts, at least 2 rules must be followed: 1) Must be compact and contiguous • All parts must touch, and it must be as geographically small as possible 2) Must have about the same number of people • All districts must be as nearly equal in population as possible

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