The 2020 Census numbers were released Monday and they brought good news for Rhode Island’s congressional representation. Rhode Island will lose not one of its two seats in Congress as experts predicted.
The census, which occurs every 10 years, determines the number of congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state receives.
Texas will gain two seats and Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon all gained one seat.
Alabama, California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia all lost seats.
The Constitution requires that each state have a minimum of one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The apportionment calculation is then used to distribute the remaining 385 seats among the 50 states.
Congress decides the method used to calculate apportionment, and the method has changed over time. Congress adopted the current method, the Method of Equal Proportions, in 1941. It was first used after the 1940 Census and has been used after each subsequent census, as mandated in Title 2, United States Code.
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