Two Delaware residents filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday demanding the state get a second seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, arguing that roughly 991,000 people crammed into a single at-large district amounts to an unconstitutional shortchanging of their votes. The plaintiffs want a three-judge panel to either force Congress to fix the problem or order the House to grow to 436 seats, with the new seat going to Delaware, in time for the 2028 election.
David Redlawsk, a University of Delaware professor, and Kevin Price, a Delaware resident, filed the 21-page complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, according to WDEL. The lawsuit names Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Commerce Deputy Under Secretary George Cook, and House Clerk Kevin McCumber as defendants in their official capacities, the station reports. Delaware's lone House seat is currently held by Sarah McBride, though she is not a party to the case.
The plaintiffs argue that Delaware has only one at-large seat for roughly 991,000 people, a disparity they say makes the state's voters among the least represented in the country, as NBC News reports. Per the same outlet, the Commerce Department oversees the Census, whose population count every ten years is used to determine how House seats are apportioned among the states.
A Comparison to Montana Anchors the Case
Central to the complaint is a comparison with Montana. Under the 2020 census figures used to allocate seats, Delaware had 990,837 residents and one representative, while Montana had 1,085,407 residents and two representatives — about 95,000 more people but twice the congressional voice, the WDEL report notes. The lawsuit states that no state has a smaller share of House seats relative to its share of the national population than Delaware.
More recent Census Bureau estimates cited in the same report show the gap narrowing in raw numbers but not in seats: Delaware's population stood at 1,059,952 as of July 1, 2025, compared with Montana's 1,144,694. From April 2020 to July 2025, Delaware's population grew by just over 7%, outpacing Montana's 5.6% growth over that span, according to the station's account — yet Montana still holds two seats to Delaware's one.
Delaware shares its single-seat status with five other states — Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming — all of which also have just one House representative. The complaint contends a second Delaware seat would still satisfy constitutional requirements for whole seats, respecting state boundaries, and guaranteeing at least one representative per state.
Tracing the 435-Seat Cap Back to 1929
The lawsuit points to the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, which imposed the current 435-seat limit on the House, as the root of the problem. According to the complaint, Delaware's thin slice of representation stems from Congress retaining a House size fixed in 1911, when the nation's population was less than one-third what it is today. The plaintiffs argue that continued retention of that fixed size lacks sufficient justification.
The disparity in scale is stark when viewed historically. According to NBC News, the plaintiffs' attorney argues that the 2020 apportionment covered more than 331 million people — over three-and-a-half times the roughly 92 million Americans counted in the 1910 census, the year before the House froze its membership. The complaint characterizes the resulting imbalance as a severe and avoidable disparity for Delaware voters.
The relevant federal statute, 2 U.S.C. § 2a, governs how reapportionment is calculated using the existing number of representatives and guarantees that no state receives fewer than one member, according to the United States Code. That statutory text describes the current mechanics of apportionment; it does not resolve the constitutional question the plaintiffs are now asking a federal panel to decide.
Redlawsk and Price's attorneys are asking the three-judge panel to declare the 435-seat limit unconstitutional and, if Congress fails to act, to order the House to expand to 436 seats with the extra seat assigned to Delaware. As The Hill reports, the outlet reached out to the Commerce Department for comment on the filing. The case does not yet have a ruling, and how the court will treat the plaintiffs' requested 2028 timeline remains an open question.
