Arti­cle 1, Sec­tion 2 estab­lish­es that the num­ber of rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the House per state is deter­mined by the state’s pop­u­la­tion. Orig­i­nal­ly, this was one rep­re­sen­ta­tive for 30,000 peo­ple. In 1929, Con­gress capped the House at 435 rep­re­sen­ta­tives. That means today, with the U.S. pop­u­la­tion around 340.1 mil­lion peo­ple accord­ing to the U.S. Cen­sus Bureau, each Con­gres­sion­al dis­trict includes about 780,000 peo­ple. Con­necti­cut has five dis­tricts, thus five rep­re­sen­ta­tives.  

This sec­tion also requires that Con­gress must count the U.S. pop­u­la­tion every 10 years. They cre­at­ed a per­ma­nent Cen­sus Bureau in 1902 to take on this task. The decen­ni­al cen­sus also prompts states to redraw vot­ing dis­tricts based on the updat­ed pop­u­la­tion data. Redis­trict­ing deter­mines vot­ing dis­tricts – and which groups have the most pow­er in the vot­ing process.  

When the new lines are drawn, state leg­is­la­tors or oth­ers charged with redis­trict­ing cre­ate new dis­tricts with rough­ly the same num­ber of indi­vid­u­als – but they also may con­sid­er things like vot­ers’ par­ty affil­i­a­tion or race.  

In the sum­mer of 2025, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump pushed for Repub­li­can states to redis­trict before the cen­sus to cre­ate more dis­tricts to help his par­ty keep con­trol of Con­gress. The first of these mid-decade redraw­ings hap­pened in Texas, in which five dis­tricts with a major­i­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers were flipped to favor Repub­li­cans.  

In retal­i­a­tion, Cal­i­for­nia vot­ers passed a mea­sure to approve a new con­gres­sion­al map, too. Propo­si­tion 50, oth­er­wise known as The Elec­tion Rig­ging Response Act, flips five dis­tricts to favor Democ­rats, can­celling out the five poten­tial Repub­li­can seats in Texas.  

Though Trump con­tin­ues to urge Repub­li­can states to redis­trict before the 2026 midterm elec­tions, his admin­is­tra­tion sued Cal­i­for­nia on Nov. 13 to block the new Prop 50 map, call­ing it a “brazen pow­er grab.”  Three days lat­er, he called out Indi­ana Repub­li­cans for not recon­ven­ing the cham­ber to redraw con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts in a Truth Social post. 

“Very dis­ap­point­ed in Indi­ana State Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, led by [Repub­li­can In Name Only] Sen­a­tors Rod Bray and Greg Goode, for not want­i­ng to redis­trict their State, allow­ing the Unit­ed States Con­gress to per­haps gain two more Repub­li­can seats,” Trump wrote. “Because of these two polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect type ‘gen­tle­men,’ and a few oth­ers, they could be depriv­ing Repub­li­cans of a Major­i­ty in the House, A VERY BIG DEAL! Cal­i­for­nia is try­ing to pick up five seats, and no one is com­plain­ing about that. It’s weak ‘Repub­li­cans’ that cause our Coun­try such prob­lems.” 

—by Mikay­la Bun­nell, UConn Jour­nal­ism