PR-AT LARGE 2022 redistricting
Puerto Rico's at-large congressional district is the largest by population in the United States — over 3.2 million residents represented by a single Resident Commissioner who can introduce legislation, serve on committees, and speak on the House floor but cannot vote on final passage of bills. The position has existed since 1901 and carries a four-year term, longer than any other congressional delegate. The Resident Commissioner functions as a full member of Congress in every procedural sense except the one that matters: the vote. This is competitive exclusion applied to representation — Puerto Rico occupies a niche in the federal system but is structurally prevented from accessing the resource (voting power) that would make the niche productive.
The exclusion is locked in by arithmetic. The Reapportionment Act of 1929 capped the House at 435 voting seats. Admitting Puerto Rico as a state would entitle it to roughly four or five representatives, but those seats would come from existing states unless Congress expanded the cap. Every state delegation that would lose a seat has an incentive to block admission, creating a path-dependent equilibrium where the status quo persists not because anyone designed it to last but because the cost of changing it falls unevenly on those with the power to decide. The 1929 cap was set when the US population was 122 million; it now serves 335 million, diluting representation everywhere — but no incumbent gains from expanding the denominator, so no one introduces the bill. The dilution falls hardest on a territory of 3.2 million with zero voting seats.
The 2022 redistricting designation is a formality: Puerto Rico has one at-large seat, so redistricting draws no new lines. The designation exists because the redistricting cycle applies uniformly to all jurisdictions regardless of whether it changes anything. Puerto Rico's residents pay federal payroll taxes, serve in the military under selective service, and are subject to federal law — but they do not vote for the president and their congressional delegate cannot vote on the laws that govern them. The arrangement persists because the resource allocation system (fixed seats, zero-sum reapportionment) makes admission costlier for incumbents than continued exclusion. The territory has held multiple status referendums, but the federal government has not acted on any of them — the political relationship remains structurally unchanged since the 1898 annexation from Spain.