The Wyoming Rule is a proposal to end the fixed 435-seat cap on the U.S. House of Representatives by tying the size of every congressional district to the population of the least populous state. Applied to the 2020 census, the formula would expand the House to about 574 members and cut the average district from more than 760,000 people to roughly 572,000.
How the Formula Works
The calculation is simple. After each decennial census, find the state with the smallest population. That number becomes the target district size for the whole country. Divide every other state’s population by it, round to the nearest whole number, and that’s how many representatives the state gets.
Wyoming’s 2020 census population was 576,851. A state with about 2.9 million residents would get five seats (2,900,000 ÷ 576,851 ≈ 5.03). A state with 39.5 million would get about 68. Wyoming itself, as the baseline, always gets exactly one.
Every ten years the baseline resets. If the smallest state grows, the target district size moves up with it, and the total House size can drift down slightly even as the country grows. Wyoming had an estimated population of about 588,750 in 2025, up from 576,851 in 2020.1StatsAmerica. States in Profile – Population Estimate for 2025
This is a different approach from the current system. Federal law, 2 U.S.C. §2a, directs the President to reapportion “the then existing number of Representatives” after each census using the method of equal proportions.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 2 USC 2a – Reapportionment of Representatives That distributes a fixed pool of 435 seats, so when one state gains a seat another has to lose one. The Wyoming Rule removes the fixed total entirely and lets the House float.
The Problem It’s Meant to Fix
With 435 seats to spread across 50 states, the arithmetic doesn’t come out evenly. The Constitution guarantees every state at least one representative no matter how small,3Congress.gov. Article I Section 2 so rounding has to go somewhere, and it tends to leave larger states carrying heavier districts.
After the 2020 census, Delaware’s single at-large representative served about 990,800 constituents. Montana’s single representative served roughly 542,700.4U.S. Census Bureau. Apportionment of Seats in the U.S. House of Representatives A voter in Montana carried nearly twice the representational weight of a voter in Delaware. The gap exists purely because of how the fixed 435 happened to divide.
The imbalance has also grown with the country. When the 435 cap was set in 1910, each House member represented about 210,000 people. The national population has more than tripled since; the chamber has not grown at all.
What the House Would Look Like
Under the Wyoming Rule applied to 2020 numbers, the House grows by 139 seats to about 574. Every state except Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, and Vermont would have at least two representatives. The nationwide average district drops from more than 760,000 constituents to roughly 572,000.
The largest raw gains go to the most populous states. California, Texas, Florida, and New York each pick up a significant number of additional seats. Crucially, no state loses seats. That’s the political selling point: reapportionment stops being a zero-sum fight where one state’s growth takes a seat from another.
Effect on the Electoral College
Each state’s electoral vote total equals its House delegation plus its two senators, and the District of Columbia gets three under the 23rd Amendment. The current total is 538, with 270 needed to win.5National Archives. What Is the Electoral College
A 574-seat House would push the Electoral College to about 677 votes (574 representatives, 100 senators, and 3 for D.C.), raising the winning threshold to 339. The Senate’s two-per-state votes would drop from about 18.6% of the total to roughly 14.8%, moving the Electoral College closer to a population-based result.6National Archives. Distribution of Electoral Votes Populous states would gain the most electoral weight. Whether that changes how candidates actually campaign is harder to predict.
How It Compares to the Cube Root Rule
The Wyoming Rule is not the only expansion proposal in circulation. The cube root rule, used as a benchmark by many national legislatures around the world, sets chamber size at the cube root of the total population. Applied to the 2020 census population of about 331.4 million, that formula produces roughly 692 seats, about 118 more than the Wyoming Rule.
The two proposals solve different problems. The Wyoming Rule anchors every calculation to the smallest state to equalize district sizes. The cube root rule draws on research arguing that the cube root of a nation’s population produces an optimal balance between constituent access and deliberative efficiency. Under the cube root rule, North Dakota and Alaska would each gain a second seat, while Wyoming and Vermont would still have one. Both proposals share the premise that 435 is too few for a country of 330 million.
What It Would Take to Pass
House size is set by statute, not the Constitution, so changing it does not require an amendment. Congress would need to rewrite the language in 2 U.S.C. §2a that keys apportionment to “the then existing number of Representatives,”2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 2 USC 2a – Reapportionment of Representatives pass the new bill through both chambers, and get a presidential signature. The Constitution sets only a floor of one representative per 30,000 people, not a ceiling.3Congress.gov. Article I Section 2
The political obstacles are more serious than the legal ones. Adding 139 seats means new districts, new campaigns, new staff, and a physically larger chamber. Members from small states that benefit from the current rounding have little reason to vote for diluting their own relative influence. The idea has circulated in academic and reform circles for years, but no bill implementing it has gained serious momentum in Congress.7Congressional Research Service. Size of the U.S. House of Representatives If a bill did pass, the new seat totals would take effect after the next decennial census.