Delaware Voters Sue to Add a 436th Seat to the U.S. House

Two Delaware voters have taken the fight over the size of the U.S. House to federal court, asking judges to declare the chamber’s 435-seat limit unconstitutional and give their state a second representative. NBC News reported that the suit was filed Tuesday against Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

The plaintiffs, University of Delaware professor David Redlawsk and Delaware resident Kevin Price, say the single at-large seat for roughly 991,000 people leaves Delaware voters with less say per person than voters anywhere else in the country. They want the extra seat in place in time for the 2028 presidential election.

The numbers behind the lawsuit

435 seats: The cap on the House that the plaintiffs are challenging. It comes from the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, according to the complaint as described by NBC News.
990,837 people: Delaware’s population in the 2020 census, all represented by one member. The suit says the state would have two representatives for its 990,837 people under its proposed fix.
Just under 1.1 million: Montana’s population, according to the plaintiffs. Montana has two House seats, which they cite as proof that Delaware is shortchanged.
331 million vs. 92 million: The 2020 apportionment divided seats among more than 331 million people. The suit says that is more than three-and-a-half times the 92 million counted in the 1910 census, before the current House size was set in 1911.
495,419 people: The average number of people per representative in Delaware if the state had two seats, according to the lawsuit.
436 members: The size of the House if the court grants the request.

Who is being sued and why

The Commerce Department oversees the Census Bureau, whose count every 10 years is used to divide House seats among the states. For that reason the suit names Lutnick. It also names George Cook, the Commerce deputy under secretary who is fulfilling the duties of the Census Bureau director, and House Clerk Kevin McCumber.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Andrew Tutt, argues that the U.S. population keeps growing while the apportionment process carries the same total number of seats forward. The complaint says the cap “imposes a severe and avoidable disparity on Delaware’s voters.” It also says the plaintiffs suffer a concrete injury because their representation in the House is diluted.

The case has been brought before a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The plaintiffs want it to rule that the 435-seat limit is unconstitutional and to create one additional seat for Delaware.

Why it matters: what the change would and would not do

For Delaware voters, the practical stakes are direct. Under the plaintiffs’ proposal, the state’s roughly 991,000 residents would be represented by two members of the House instead of one, and each member would answer to about half as many people. The suit argues that this would give Delaware’s voters the additional representation their population requires.

The plaintiffs describe the remedy as narrow. They say adding a single seat would leave the allocations of the other 49 states intact. The House would simply grow to 436 members, rather than being reshuffled across the country.

The case also puts a broader question before the courts: whether a seat count fixed in law more than a century ago can keep serving a population that has grown several times over. The suit frames the issue as one of equal weight for each voter’s representation, citing Delaware’s single seat against Montana’s two.

What happens next

The plaintiffs have asked the court to order the House increased to 436 members if Congress does not act on the request. The Commerce Department and the House clerk did not immediately respond to NBC News’ requests for comment, so their positions on the lawsuit are not yet known.

Around Prague, based on reporting by NBC News

Cover photo: Martin Falbisoner / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped

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