reapportionment

noun

re·​ap·​por·​tion·​ment ˌrē-ə-ˈpȯr-shən-mənt 

plural reapportionments

: an act or result of reapportioning something : the process or result of making a new proportionate division or distribution of something

especially, US law : the reassignment of representatives proportionally among the states in accordance with changes in population distribution

As one might expect, the legislative majority did not care to realign districts to represent the current distribution of the population, because reapportionment would endanger some of their seats.

—Robert H. Bork

During the Warren Court period the federal courts revolutionized criminal procedure law, created modern antidiscrimination law, recaptured the First Amendment from the shambles of McCarthyism, and restructured American politics through reapportionment.

—Elizabeth Mensch

Bipartisan gerrymandering following the 2000 reapportionment produced hundreds of safe Democratic seats, hundreds of safe Republican seats, and not much else.

—Peter Beinart

Examples of reapportionment in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Florida and Texas have been gaining seats for a few decades, while New York has been losing seats over each reapportionment cycle. —Jared Gans, The Hill, 12 Jan. 2025

Last year, the Brennan Center for Justice predicted that the state was on track to lose four more congressional districts in reapportionment in 2030, leaving California with just 48 House seats. —Jenny Jarvie, Los Angeles Times, 23 Dec. 2024

Michael Li, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, said Friday the Census Bureau’s new estimates indicated there might be a slightly less dramatic 2030 reapportionment across the nation. —Jenny Jarvie, Los Angeles Times, 23 Dec. 2024

Utah Congressional District 4 Utah’s 4th congressional district first appeared after the 2010 Census reapportionment. —Andrew Depietro, Forbes, 1 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1788, in the meaning defined above