Formulas, Ratios, Estimates, and Counts: The Historical Roots of Quantitative Public Policy in the US Margo Anderson ASA/NSF/Census Bureau Research Fellow, History & Urban Studies, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

Background on the Research Update The American Census: A Social History (first published in 1988) Look toward the 2020 Census and Statistical Policy Innovation Define themes and patterns on the long history of census taking and the development of the federal statistical system

Constitutional Rules, Formulas and Ratios (1787) “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Taxes should be apportioned according to the capacity of the payer, as measured by wealth Political representation should be apportioned according the population Wealth is highly correlated with population Therefore:

Constitutional Rules, Formulas and Ratios, cont. “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers…” But, all “people” are not the same, so the numbers… “shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

Implications Representation follows population, one to one equivalence, for allocations to states. (note: not voters) Indians are not part of the population, are outside the polity, not counted. Slaves ≠ free persons, so discount slave population to 60% of free (federal ratio) “No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken”

Implications Growth and change require periodic recalibration of the taxation, representation, population metric: 10 year cycle. Congress cannot be trusted to periodically reapportion itself, so the measurement process must be set on an automatic timetable.

Implementation Rules, post 1789 There are many possible apportionment formulae for converting population totals to congressional seats. They differ in the way they allocation fractions: remainders; equal proportions; major fractions. A rule must be chosen. There are many possible ways to allocate seats within states from at large to single member district to a mix. In the 1840s Congress articulated a rule of compact, contiguous, and equally sized districts.

Constitutional Revisions The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery and the ‘federal ratio.’ The amendment ended the discounting of the formerly slave population in the allocation formula. Abolition increased the level of representation of the former slave states in the House of Representatives and Electoral College and led to further constitutional revisions.

Constitutional Revisions, cont. Fourteenth Amendment, Section 2 (1868): – “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.”

Constitutional Revisions Fifteenth Amendment (1870): “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Sixteenth Amendment (1913): “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

Rules Governing the Admission of States Northwest Ordinance (1787): – “Art. 5.…And, whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government: Provided, the constitution and government so to be formed, shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles; and, so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants in the State than sixty thousand. “

Implementation: Controlling Growth and Diversity