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 smallest entitled unit, which is currently the State of Wyoming. Under 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, which size has been fixed at 435 since 1929, except for a brief period from 1959 to 1963, is expanded.
A total of 569 seats would have been required to implement the Wyoming Rule based on the 2000 United States Census results. However, the decade leading up to the 2010 United States Census saw Wyoming's population increase at a greater rate than that of the rest of the United States; as a result, the required House size to implement the Wyoming Rule was reduced to 547. Under the Wyoming Rule, California would gain the most seats with thirteen more members than it currently has. The wide disparity in population among the states combines with the cap on House membership to lessen the effective representation for people who live in more populated states. The most glaring example is Montana, which according to the 2010 Census had a population of 989,415 with one representative, compared to Rhode Island's 1,052,567 residents with two. This makes a Rhode Islander's vote worth 88% more than a vote from a Montanan.
While a larger House size will generally result in the smallest and largest districts being proportionally closer in size, this is not always the case. Therefore, in some cases, the Wyoming Rule may actually result in an increase in the ratio of the sizes of the largest and smallest districts. After the 1990 United States Census and with a House size of 435, the largest district had 799,065 residents, 76.1654% larger than the smallest district with 453,588 residents. The Wyoming Rule would have given a House size of 545 in 1990 if the former method of seat apportionment been used. With that size, the largest district would have had 638,800 residents, 91.7835% larger than the smallest districts, at approximately 333,084 residents each.

Legal and constitutional basis for the current House of Representatives 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.
From a constitutional standpoint, the only restriction on House size is a limit of one representative per thirty thousand people. Therefore, the Wyoming Rule would be constitutional as long as the least populous state had a population of at least 30,000.

Under the 2010 U.S. Census

The chart set out below identifies the number of House members that would be given to the respective states if the Wyoming Rule were to be implemented using the population numbers from the 2010 United States Census.
South Dakota with its two seats and an average of 407,090 people per seat would have the most seats per capita. Alaska's lone seat would have the fewest seats per capita. This gives a ratio of 1 to 1.74465 between greatest and smallest number of persons per seat. By comparison, it would be 1 to 1.88000 for the current lone seat of Montana and Rhode Island's two seats.
States just short of getting an extra vote in the House include Alaska, Hawaii, North Dakota and Maine, which all have more than 650,000 people per representative. At the other end of the scale, states like South Dakota, Delaware, Montana and New Mexico just manage to secure an extra seat in Congress, each having below 515,000 people per representative.
StateSeats
Seats
Pop. per seatSeat changeNotes
Alabama79531,082+2
Alaska11710,2310Highest population per seat.
Arizona911581,092+2
Arkansas45583,184+1
California5366564,454+13Largest gain in seats.
Colorado79558,800+2
Connecticut56595,683+1
Delaware12448,967+1Smallest state to gain seats.
Florida2733569,737+6
Georgia1417569,862+3
Hawaii22680,1510
Idaho23522,527+1
Illinois1823557,854+5
Indiana912540,317+3
Iowa45609,271+1
Kansas45570,624+1
Kentucky68542,421+2
Louisiana68566,672+2
Maine22664,1810
Maryland810577,355+2
Massachusetts912545,636+3
Michigan1418549,091+4
Minnesota89589,325+1
Mississippi45593,459+1
Missouri811544,448+3
Montana12494,708+1
Nebraska33608,7800
Nevada45540,110+1
New Hampshire22658,2350
New Jersey1216549,493+4
New Mexico34514,795+1
New York2734569,944+7
North Carolina1317560,911+4
North Dakota11672,5910
Ohio1620576,825+4
Oklahoma57535,907+2
Oregon57547,296+2
Pennsylvania1823552,277+5
Rhode Island22526,2840
South Carolina78578,171+1
South Dakota12407,090+1Lowest population per seat.
Tennessee911576,919+2
Texas3645558,790+9
Utah45552,777+1
Vermont11608,8270
Virginia1114571,501+3
Washington1012560,378+2
West Virginia33617,6650
Wisconsin810568,699+2Closest to average
population-to-representative ratio.
Wyoming11563,6260
Total435547+112

Historical House sizes

The following table describes how the House of Representatives would have looked like 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, 19301,34329–52062111831632–58435272129239184753282240615154451383577326101068198296464271719322
16th, 19401,18826–51863101621728–5723123162621817394825203451214385122326632110906176265853241617292
17th, 195093619–5126681321721–45425161218176152940191425481330492254501410655134214842211513212
18th, 19607901416869811222173344211210131441423351510193613274742034310850411316424218138172
19th, 197067411166667102231532371798111231319301371625232436117235973939213374215116151
20th, 1980562101765978224142228147691031014231061224221834415227873028211354113105121
21st, 19905459185657722814222512658931113201061124321734015124762628211374114114111
22nd, 200056991105689723217332512658931113201061123431743816123772528212425114124111
23rd, 20105479111566962331723231255882101218951123521643417120772328211455114123101
Census, YearSizeALAKAZARCACOCTDEFLGAHIIDILINIAKSKYLAMEMDMAMIMNMSMOMTNENVNHNJNMNYNCNDOHOKORPARISCSDTNTXUTVTVAWAWVWIWY

The smallest state in each census since 1930 were:
The Wyoming Rule would directly impact the United States Electoral College which elects the President of the United States since apportionment to that body is calculated as the sum of a state's Representatives and Senators. Under the Wyoming Rule, the Electoral College would currently consist of 650 Electors and 326 electoral votes would be required to win the Presidency.
Under the 2010 census, neither state which allows individual Congressional districts to choose electors would gain Representatives under the Wyoming Rule. Thus, their current Congressional district boundaries would remain valid for the purposes of comparing actual and theoretical presidential election results since 2012. However, Maine would have had one additional electoral vote until the 2008 election and Nebraska would have had one additional electoral vote until the 2000 election, and for those elections would have been electing presidential electors using different congressional district boundaries.
Under the Twenty-third Amendment, the District of Columbia would remain effectively capped at three electors as is the case now. DC cannot have more electors than the least populous state per the Twenty-third Amendment, meaning it would not be granted an additional elector unless all states had at least two representatives and therefore four total electors.

Potential impact on the 2000 presidential election

As indicated in the table below, the Wyoming rule typically only carries a modest notional impact on historical presidential elections. In only two cases since 1932, these being 1960 and 1976, would the Wyoming rule have potentially caused a candidate to gain or lose more than a full percentage point in terms of electoral vote share. Both of these elections were special cases - 1960 due to the presence of unpledged electors in the South and 1976 due to the potential effect the Wyoming rule could have had in the notional Congressional districts of Maine.
The one presidential election for which the Wyoming Rule might have significantly impacted the result was the tightly-contested 2000 United States presidential election, assuming the disputed state of Florida had still been carried by George W. Bush. In this case, had Bush and Al Gore received all of the electoral votes in the states they won and had there been no faithless electors, they would have finished tied in the Electoral College with 324 electoral votes each, possibly forcing contingent elections in the United States Congress. However, it must be noted that both Maine and Nebraska at the time would have had one additional electoral vote each under the Wyoming rule, and thus both states would have had radically different Congressional district boundaries. In Nebraska, this would not likely have been a factor since Bush carried every county in the state, thus making it extremely unlikely an additional electoral vote there could have been won by Al Gore. However, in Maine, Bush carried 5 of the 16 counties including heavily populated Penobscot County as well as Piscataquis, Washington, Lincoln and Waldo counties. All of those counties are contiguous with one another. Bordering the counties Bush won are Hancock, Knox and Aroostook counties, all of which Bush lost by small margins. Had those eight counties comprised a congressional district in 2000, it would have been carried by Bush by 4,767 votes. Of course, there are countless ways Congressional districts can be legally drawn in a state including innumerable ways in which all three notional Maine districts would have been won by Gore. Moreover, district boundaries often do not follow county lines.
Following the actual 2000 elections, the Republicans controlled 27 state House delegations, the Democrats controlled 18, one was controlled by an independent who caucused with the Democrats and the remaining four were split. The Republicans therefore controlled one more state House delegation than needed to elect the President on a party-line vote in a contingent election under the Twelfth Amendment. However, four of those Republican delegations were single Representatives from states that at the time would have elected two Representatives under the Wyoming Rule. Had only two of those House delegations split as a result, and the Republicans not gained control of any other delegations, the Republicans would have lacked control of enough state House delegations to elect Bush on a party-line vote. A much more radical shift would have been required to produce a House that could elect Gore on a party-line vote.
In any hypothetical contingency election, a House without one party controlling a minimum of 26 state delegations cannot elect a President under a strict party-line vote. In this situation, at least some Representatives would need to break ranks with their party for the House to elect a President. Under this sort of circumstance, since Gore won the popular vote in 2000 it is likely that Congressional delegations would have been under considerable pressure to respect the result of the popular vote in any contingency election, especially if the process became deadlocked.
Had the electoral vote for Vice President ended tied, the United States Senate would have elected the new Vice President. A party-line vote in that chamber would have resulted in a tie between Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney. The Constitution is not clear as to whether the Vice President can vote to break a tie in that situation, meaning that Gore as Vice President would have potentially but not certainly had the opportunity to cast the deciding vote and elect his running mate Lieberman. Such a move would not only have allowed Lieberman to succeed Gore as the next Vice President, but would have resulted in the Democrats retaining control of the Senate. Had the House contingent election remained deadlocked on Inauguration Day, then under the provisions of the Twentieth Amendment the new Vice President would have acted as President until the contingent election was resolved.

Electoral College results under the Wyoming Rule (since 1932)

The following table compares actual number of pledged presidential electors that have been elected since 1932 to the number who would have been elected under the Wyoming Rule, based on the apportionments given in the previous section's table. Any uncertainties and assumptions are noted for each election. Also, for the sake of simplicity and because faithless electors have never successfully changed the result of an election, and because the number of faithless electors under the Wyoming Rule cannot be known, faithless electors are ignored for the purposes of this table. The table only tabulates pledged electors and counts faithless electors as if they voted as pledged.
Elections won by the Democratic Party
Elections won by the Republican Party
‡ indicates winner lost the popular vote