# Plain Language Summary: Constitutional Amendment on House Representation

This bill proposes to change how the number of U.S. House Representatives each state gets is decided. Right now, the Constitution says Representatives are divided among states based on their total population—meaning every person living in a state counts, regardless of citizenship status. This proposed amendment would change that rule so that only citizens are counted when dividing up the 435 House seats among the 50 states.

To understand what this means in practice: if a state has a lot of non-citizen residents (whether they're immigrants, temporary workers, or people in the country illegally), that state would lose House seats under this new rule. Those seats would shift to states with higher percentages of citizens. This could affect which states have more political power in Congress and how federal funding gets distributed, since many programs are based on House representation numbers.

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 approved by three-fourths of state legislatures within seven years. That's a very high bar—constitutional amendments are intentionally difficult to pass. The practical effect would be that states with large immigrant populations (like California, Texas, and New York) could lose representation, while states with lower immigration might gain seats. This would reshape political power in Congress and potentially affect how much federal resources those states receive.

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.

Davidson, Warren

 <p>This joint resolution proposes a constitutional amendment to require that the seats in the House of Representatives be divided among the states based on their share of U.S. citizens rather than their share of the total U.S. population.</p>