Mr. Willis of Ohio
From The West Wing (Season 1, Episode 6, “Mr. Willis of Ohio”)
Categories:
Run time: 6:12
Clip Description: Debate about using statistical modeling for the US census; details how individual representatives operate, the power of committees and committee chairs, and the role of congressional representatives.
American Politics Concepts Discussed/Connected To: This clip is useful for the constitutional census clause in Article I, Section 2, which requires an “actual Enumeration,” and the long fight over whether statistical sampling may be used to correct for undercounts – a question the Supreme Court answered for apportionment purposes in Department of Commerce v. United States House of Representatives (1999). Because apportionment and the drawing of districts both follow from the count, the technical argument is also a distributive one. The scene is equally useful on how Congress actually works: the power of committees and their chairs, and how much leverage a single member holds when the margin is narrow. It is also a clean illustration of the trustee model of representation, in which a legislator votes on the merits of the argument rather than on instruction from the district.
Possible Uses in Classroom: Use this clip in a unit on Congress, or in one on representation. It works particularly well as a way into the delegate-versus-trustee distinction, because the deliberation is shown rather than described: a member changes his vote because he is persuaded, which is the thing textbooks claim happens and students tend to doubt. It also gives a concrete, low-stakes example of a technical policy question with large political consequences, which is a useful corrective to the assumption that the important fights are always the loud ones.
Discussion Questions
- The Constitution requires an ‘actual Enumeration’ every ten years, and everyone involved agrees that the count misses people — disproportionately renters, young children, the poor, and households where English is not spoken. Statisticians can estimate who was missed; in 1999 the Supreme Court held that federal law bars using those estimates to apportion House seats, so the head count stands. Make the strongest case that counting-and-missing is more legitimate than estimating-and-being-roughly-right, then make the strongest case the other way.
- This clip turns on one member of Congress being argued into changing his mind in a committee room. Committees are where most bills are actually written or quietly killed, and a chair largely controls what reaches the room at all — which means a persuadable member matters only if the chair lets the question get to him. How much independent room does a rank-and-file House member really have, and what does your answer imply about where a constituent’s pressure is worth spending?
- Apportionment is zero-sum: the House has been fixed at 435 seats by statute since 1929, so every person counted in one state moves power away from another. Decide what you think the right counting method is — and then ask whether you would hold the same view if it were your state losing the seat. Say specifically what would have to be true for you to accept a method that costs your side representation.
Assignment
The Census Bureau publishes the apportionment results after each census, including each state’s population and the priority values that decide the last seats. Using the 2020 numbers, find the state that came closest to gaining a seat and the one that came closest to keeping one, and work out how few people separated them. Then write two to three pages arguing whether that near-miss is a problem with the counting method, with the accuracy of the count, or with the 435-seat cap itself — and what you would change. The hard part is that ‘fair’ probably means equal district populations to you, and no apportionment method can deliver that across states while every state gets at least one seat. Say what you are willing to give up.
Video to come. In the meantime the scene runs from 21:47 to 27:59.
For AP Students
AP U.S. Government and Politics
Unit 2: Interactions Among Branches of Government
Topics: 2.1 Congress: The Senate and the House of Representatives; 2.2 Structures, Powers, and Functions of Congress
Skill: Concept Application (1.D)
Anchors: Article I, Section 2; Baker v. Carr (1962); Shaw v. Reno (1993)
A congressman serving out his late wife’s term is talked through a dispute over whether the census should use statistical sampling, and changes his vote because the argument persuades him. The census is the least glamorous thing in Article I and it fixes how many seats every state holds for the following ten years, which is the reason it is worth a class period.
Discussion questions
- The Constitution requires an enumeration every ten years. Explain what that count determines beyond the size of a state’s delegation.
- The dispute is over whether to count people directly or to estimate the ones a direct count misses. Name who is most likely to go uncounted, and explain why that makes the method political rather than merely technical.
- Mr. Willis changes his vote because he is persuaded in the room. How often do you think that happens, and what does your answer imply about what floor debate is actually for?
Short activity
Apportionment in two rounds (15 minutes). Give students the populations of three imaginary states and ten seats to distribute between them. They allocate the seats, then recalculate after one state’s population is revised upward by five percent. Two sentences: who lost a seat, and did that state’s population fall? It did not, and seeing that once is what stops students treating the census as bookkeeping. Apportionment is zero-sum, and a state can lose representation while growing.