# Plain Language Summary

This bill proposes a constitutional amendment that would change how House of Representatives seats are divided among the states. Right now, the number of representatives each state gets is based on its total population—counting everyone who lives there, including non-citizens. This amendment would change that by counting only U.S. citizens when deciding how many representatives each state receives.

To understand what this means in practice: if a state has a million people but 100,000 of them are non-citizens, that state would lose representation under this amendment. States with larger immigrant populations—both documented and undocumented—would likely lose House seats, while states with fewer immigrants would gain seats. This would shift political power in Congress, since states with fewer representatives have less influence on legislation and receive less federal funding based on population.

For this amendment to actually become law, it would need to pass both the House and Senate with a two-thirds majority in each chamber, then be ratified by three-fourths of state legislatures (38 out of 50 states). This is an extremely high bar—constitutional amendments rarely pass because they require such broad agreement. The practical effect, if it ever did pass, would be that millions of people living and working in the United States would no longer count toward their state's representation in Congress, even though they're affected by the laws Congress makes.

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to provide that Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the number of persons in each State who are citizens of the United States.

Rep. Davidson, Warren [R-OH-8]

 <p>This joint resolution proposes a constitutional amendment requiring Representatives to be apportioned according to the number of U.S. citizens in each state, rather than the number of persons in each state.</p>