	Background

H.R. 157 / S. 160 , the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 introduced in the 111 th Congress, provided for a permanent increase in the size of the U.S. House of Representatives, from 435 seats to 437 seats. 157 ) or specifying that the seat would be allocated to Utah, the state which would have received the 436 th seat under the 2000 apportionment process. While both versions treated the District of Columbia as if it were a state for the purposes of the allocation of House seats, each bill restricted the District of Columbia to a single congressional seat under any future apportionments. In addition, Table 1 also shows the impact on the distribution of seats in the House if the District of Columbia were to be treated as if it were a state for apportionment purposes for both a House size of 435 seats and a House size of 437 seats. These are the actual seats to be allocated based on the results of the 2010 Census.
Two proposals (H.R. 157/S. 160, District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009) were introduced in the 111th Congress to provide for voting representation in the U.S. House of Representatives for the residents of the District of Columbia (DC). H.R. 157/S. 160, for purposes of voting representation, treated the District of Columbia as if it were a state, giving a House seat to the District, but restricting it to a single seat under any future apportionments. The bills also increased the size of the House to 437 members from 435, and gave the additional seat to the state that would have received the 436th seat under the 2000 apportionment, Utah.
This report shows the distribution of House seats based on the 2010 Census for 435 seats and for 437 seats as specified in the proposal. North Carolina, which would receive the 436th seat in the 2010 apportionment is substituted for Utah, assuming that any new, similar legislation would adopt the same language as H.R. 157.