representation in Congress

As a result of the Great Compromise of 1787, the Constitution provided for fundamentally different types of representation in the House and Senate. Membership in the House is proportional to the population of the state. The number of representatives to which each state is entitled is determined every 10 years after a national census, or head count, has been taken. In the 1st Congress each member of the House represented about 30,000 constituents. By the 103rd Congress the average House member represented nearly 600,000 constituents. At first the number of representatives grew with each census, from 105 after the 1790 census to 435 after the 1910 census. Then Congress froze the number at 435 to keep the House at a manageable size.

The membership of the Senate grows by two each time a new state joins the Union. Every state is entitled to two senators, regardless of the size of its population. Before the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913, when senators were still elected by state legislatures, senators were compared to ambassadors, representing their state's political establishment in the national legislature. With direct election of senators, however, senators see themselves as representing the people of their state, who voted them into office. (1787); Reapportionment

See also Bicameral; Great Compromise