The House of Representatives has 435 members. The number of representatives from each state depends on how many people live in the state. Congress apportions, or distributes, the seats among the States.
Every State must send at least one representative to the House. The States that have the fewest people have one member in the house. California, the State with the most people, has 52 House members.
House members serve a term of two years. They may serve an unlimited number of terms if the people continue to elect them.
Reapportionment
Every ten years the United States counts its population, a process called a census. After each census, the number of representatives any one state has may change. States in which population has grown may gain a House seat. States that lost population may lose seats. To redistribute the seats is to reapportion them. Each House member represents an average of about 595,000 Americans.
Congressional Elections
Congressional elections are held in November in even-numbered years. An off year election is the congressional election held between presidentail elections, which are held every four years. The President's political party usually loses seats in the off year election.
The qualified voters of a single congressional district vote for a member of the House. In a single-member district election, voters select one candidate to represent a single geological district in the House. In an at large election, all voters from the State (rather than a district) vote for the officer. For example, Senators are elected by all the voters in the State.
Once the Federal Government tells each State how many House seats it has, the State draws the boundaries of its House districts. Congress made rules for this process. Each district must be gontiguous, or one piece of land. It also must be compact or cover the smallest possible area. Finally all districts must have roughly the same number of people.
States used to ignore these rules. Instead, the party that controlled the State legislature drew boundaries to help its candidates win House elections. This is known as gerrymandering. In the 1964 case Wesberry v. Sanders, the Supreme Court ruled that a State may not create some congressional districts with more people than otthers. Within each State, the Court declared, one person's vote should be worth as much as another's. This decision garanteed "one-person, one-vote" equality.