Remapping of the States Up to Courts : Montana challenge to current method may force legislatures to do their congressional redistricting all over again.

State legislatures pushing to decide how to reapportion their states’ congressional districts may be in for a nasty jolt. Just as the legislators are nearing the end of the process, the courts are threatening to send them back to their computers to start anew.

BACKGROUND: The issue involves one of the oldest debates in the nation’s history: What is the fairest way to calculate how many congressional seats that each state should have? Montana has opened the issue in a challenge to the current process. The Supreme Court may have to sort it out.

On its face, the solution seems straightforward enough: Just count the number of people in the country, divide by 435--the total number of lawmakers allowed in the U.S. House of Representatives--and reallocate the congressional districts among the 50 states.

According to the latest census, the United States has just over 249 million residents. If the total population could be apportioned evenly, that would yield one congressman for each 572,466 residents--249 million-plus people divided by 435.

Because congressional districts must hew to state boundaries, however, it is not that simple. For example, California’s population of 29.8 million people entitles the state to 52.1 seats. Montana, with 803,000 million persons, should rate 1.4 representatives.

How to cope with these fractions has perplexed political leaders since the days of Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and John Quincy Adams. In fact, each of them developed his own proposal for dealing with the situation. Not surprisingly, the proposals all conflict.

Since then, mathematicians have developed at least six methods, all of which are arguably fair but each of which yields slightly different results.

As might be expected, the differences are no mere academic curiosity. Under the two most popular methods, for example, Montana could end up with either one representative or two--the second at the expense of Washington state, which would lose a seat in the process.

The size of the California delegation could vary even more using other proposed methods--rising from 50 seats to 54.

THE QUESTION: Which of these various methods is the most equitable? That depends on where you sit. The method that Montana has challenged--which has been in use since 1940--concentrates on the relative population differences between the states and tends to benefit smaller states.

Under such calculations, giving Montana one additional seat would make each of its congressional districts 48% larger than Washington’s. Switching the seats would produce an even larger relative difference--in Washington’s favor. Montanans say that would be unfair.

On the other hand, using that second method of calculation, the absolute difference in population between the average district in Montana and the average in Washington would be 260,000 people.

Switching so that Montana had two seats and Washington had eight would produce a difference in average populations of only 209,000 people. Montana officials argue that such a shift would make the apportionment more equitable.

A third method--devised by John Quincy Adams--is even more favorable to small states. Its goal is to minimize the number of situations in which some states have districts that are much larger than those of others.

The result is to distribute more seats to small states, such as Montana, Delaware and North Dakota, at the expense of bigger states, such as California. If the courts were to order states to use Adams’ method, California’s congressional delegation would drop to 50.

And still another method--by Jefferson--would have just the opposite effect. It seeks to minimize the number of situations in which some states have districts that are much smaller in population than average. If it were in use, California would get 54 seats.

THE OUTLOOK: Unfortunately for state legislatures, the court challenge by Montana has placed a cloud over the entire process--just at the time when the legislators need to finish up their reapportionment battles.

With the 1992 campaign almost here, the White House plans to ask the Supreme Court to step in and resolve the problem. If the justices do not act soon, the United States could end up having to skip reapportionment altogether, as it did in 1920, when Congress deadlocked over the method.

Reapportionment Made Easy: Four Different Methods:

Who would win--and lose--if the United States changed the method by which it calculates the number of congressional seats each state should have? Here is how California and five other states would fare under four alternative proposals:

California Arizona Delaware Montana Tennessee Current method 52 6 1 1 9 (equal proportions) seats seats seat seat seats Proposed method 52 6 1 2 9 (harmonic mean) John Quincy 50 7 2 2 9 Adams’ method Thomas Jefferson’s 54 6 1 1 8 method

Washington Current method 9 (equal proportions) seats Proposed method 8 (harmonic mean) John Quincy 9 Adams’ method Thomas Jefferson’s 8 method