# Wyoming Rule The best-known proposal to enlarge the U.S. House of Representatives: set the size of a congressional district equal to the population of the least populous state, then give every state seats in proportion. Because the smallest state's single district already exists as a constitutional floor, the rule works by pulling every other state's district size down toward it rather than by picking a target number of seats. Its appeal is that it addresses the distortion the 435-seat cap creates without amending the Constitution. The average district has grown from roughly 210,000 people when the cap was set to roughly 761,000 after the 2020 count, and a fixed chamber makes apportionment strictly zero-sum — one state gains only when another loses. Enlarging the House is the one lever in the apportionment pipeline that requires no constitutional argument at all, since the cap rests on the [[Apportionment Act of 1911]] as made permanent by the [[Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929]]. It is also the lever nobody in Congress has an incentive to pull, since every sitting member's relative weight falls as the chamber grows. Related proposals include the cube-root rule and fixed-ratio schemes; the never-ratified [[Congressional Apportionment Amendment]] would have governed House size by constitutional formula instead. See [[How the Census Apportions Congress]]. > [!note] Stub — fill out > This page was created as a stub during learning-module generation on 2026-09-12. Audit and expand when convenient.