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The House of Representatives
Membership
• 435 members
• Larger body of Congress
• Number of seats per state based on population
• Each state must have at least one
Qualifications
• To be elected to the House of Representatives, you must be:• At least 25 years old• A citizen of the U.S. for at
least 7 years• A legal resident of the
state you are representing
It is a tradition to live in the district you represent, although it is technically not required
• Your rep is Cliff Stearns- District 6
Term of office
• 2 year terms
• Elections in November of even-numbered years
• Term begins on Jan. 3rd
• Every 2 years, all 435 members must run for re-election
• Over 90% of all representatives are re-elected each year
Representation and reapportionment
• Census (population count) every ten years• First census was taken in 1790• Most recent was 2010• Next will be 2020
• Reapportionment- pop. of each state (based on census) determines new number of representatives• Some states lose reps• Some states gain reps• Total number always remain
435- since 1911
Congressional redistricting
• After number of representatives is decided, states must draw up districts
• One district per representative
• Redistricting-setting up new district lines after reapportionment has been completed
• Problems• Unequal population between districts• Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering
• District boundaries drawn in an irregular way, where one particular political party gains advantage
• Named after Elbridge Gerry- drew a salamander shaped district in Massachusetts to help his party gain advantage-a cartoonists added a head, wings, and claws to the district map and called it gerrymandering
• Gerry + Salamander = Gerrymander!
The original gerrymander
gerrymandering- Florida District 3
Gerrymandering- Illinois district 4
gerrymandering
• 2 types- “Packing” and “Cracking”• Packing
• Crowding the other party’s voters into one district ensures that your party of choice will win all the other districts
• Cracking• Dividing the other party’s voters into small groups
within each district weakens their voter base
• Supreme Court has ruled that districts must be compact and physically adjoining, but gerrymandering still exists today.