The New 3/5th Rule

Back in the 1780s when the Articles of Confederation were failing the newly independent United States, a constitutional convention was called.  The putative plan was merely to amend the Articles to deal with recent troubles.  Instead, a new constitution was composed.  One of the difficulties was that the southern states had sizable slave populations.  Slaves were property and thus, it was argued, shouldn't be counted in the population.  As representation in the House was going to be based on population, the South didn't like that plan.  Of course, the North didn't think slaves should get the same representation as citizens.  What to do?  The two sides agreed to the 3/5th compromise.  Thus, a state with 50,000 citizens and 50,000 slaves would be allocated House seats as if the population was 80,000 people (100% of the citizens plus 60% of the slaves).  This compromise allowed the South to keep pace with the far more populace North for decades.  Though the 3/5th rule is still written into the Constitution, the 13th Amendment - which abolished slavery - ended it.

Today, a new means of inflating representation in the House has been developed.  Though it would seem obvious that the purpose of the House of Representatives was to represent the interests of the citizens, such is not quite the case.  The huge influx of illegal aliens - or undocumented workers, if you prefer - has inflated some regions.  In 2018, it was estimated that 11 to 12 million "unauthorized immigrants" were in the United States.  That was about 3% of the population, or 14 seats in the House of Representatives.  Now, if this 3% was evenly spread across the US, the representation would be a wash.  But they are not evenly spread.  According to this 2019 story, most of them live in 20 metro areas.  By having a large illegal population, a state can gain a House seat or two.  Within the state, the balance of representatives will tilt toward the metro areas, disenfranchising the rural areas and smaller cities.  It should be noted that several million more illegals have immigrated into the US over the last 3 years.

Though there are financial costs to hosting illegal aliens, the political gains are clearly enough to have the majority of politicians turn a blind eye.  Illegal immigration is so unpopular with the citizenry that Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 by campaigning on it.  He may win in 2024 by campaigning on it again!

Much as it was wrong to allocate representation to slave states through the 3/5th rule, it is also wrong to grant sanctuary cities and states more representation because they flout US law.  Citizenship should have benefits.  If Dieter from Germany happens to be attending the University of Iowa, that does not mean that he should count toward Iowa's number of Representatives in the House.  Incentives matter and right now the incentive is to give more representation based on population rather than citizens; politicians are responding to those incentives by opening the borders.