The impacts of apportionment method, and legal and illegal immigration, onCongressional apportionment in the year 2000

This paper first discusses two methods for apportioning the US House of Rep resentatives, Equal Proportions and Major Fractions. The method of Equal Pr oportions will be used in the 2000 apportionment, but it is biased in favor of smaller states. The method of Major Fractions is a mathematically unbia sed method, but will not be used in 2000. However, we show that apportionme nts for 2000 would not differ much according to these two methods. We also consider different definitions of the apportionment population, mainly base d on including or excluding legal and illegal immigrants from the apportion ment process. We show that the apportionment results for 2000 will not diff er if illegal immigrants who entered the USA in the 1990s are kept in, or r emoved from, the apportionment population. But the apportionment results wi ll differ in a major way if all persons immigrating to the USA in the 1990s are kept in, or removed.