how does the government decide how many members of the house each state gets?

Answer 1

Population as registered during each census.

Answer 2

Back in 1940, Congress passed a law describing a particular algebraic formula (it is called "the method of equal proportions) which must be used to calculate the number of seats in the House for each state.

There are 435 seats in the House (that is NOT in the Constitution, as one previous answer stated), and the Constitution requires that each state gets one seat in the House no matter how small its population is, so 50 of the seats are automatically apportioned -- one to each state. That still leaves 385 seats to apportion to the states. That is where the algebraic formula comes in. The population of each state is plugged into the formula and several calculations are performed for each state. It takes about 450 calculations in all, using all 50 state populations. Then the resulting numbers produced by those calculations are put in order from the largest to the smallest, and the top 385 numbers are the ones which deserve to get another seat in the House. That is how the other 385 seats are apportioned.

Officially, it is the Clerk of the House who performs these calculations and then submits a document to each of the states letting each state know how many seats in the House it has.

Answer 3

Population...
"Under Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of population, as determined by the census conducted every ten years. Each state, however, is entitled to at least one Representative.

The only constitutional rule relating to the size of the House says "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand." (see Article I, Section 2) As the population of the United States increased, Congress regularly increased the size of the House after the census to account for growth; but the limit became obsolete when Congress fixed the size of the House at 435 seats in 1911 (see Public Law 62-5). The figure was temporarily increased to 437 in 1959 to reflect the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states, but returned to 435 four years later."

Answer 4

The Constitution specifies how many members there are in the House. However, I believe it was amended at one time to limit the total membership to 435, each state gets at least one and the total for each state is based on population. MT and WY only have 1.

Answer 5

States are divided up into districts based on the population--Each district gets one rep.

Then there's the Republican Gerrymandering Method whereby they redistrict the states-not by population, but by political voting trends in order the maximize the likely hood of getting their candidate elected.

Answer 6

I beleive it depends on the population of the state.

Answer 7

Constitution.... it's done by population from census data.