# Method of Equal Proportions The formula Congress uses to divide the 435 House seats among the states, adopted in 1941 and applied after every census since 1940. Also called the Huntington-Hill method. It works in two moves. Every state receives one seat first, which is constitutionally required and consumes 50 of the 435. The remaining 385 are assigned by **priority value**: for each state and each seat number *n*, the value is the state's apportionment population divided by the geometric mean of *n* and *n* minus 1. All priority values are ranked nationally, and the top 385 take the remaining seats. The method has no discretionary input. Its only arguments are the fifty state population totals delivered by the Secretary of Commerce, which is why every political fight over apportionment is a fight about those totals rather than about the arithmetic. See [[Congressional Apportionment Mathematics]] for why this method was chosen over Hamilton's, Jefferson's, and Webster's, and [[How the Census Apportions Congress]] for the pipeline around it.