Can you share your setup? I haven’t been able to replicate this issue. My tables that have no rows don’t change appearance to the ones that do. 

Try adding an action to remove the row so that there aren’t any rows any more.

That was one of the first things I tried. I couldn’t get the box to scrunch like you see it.

In a popup?

That was the trick. I was able to reproduce it in a pop up only. Thank you.

I’m attempting to determine whether this is by design or not.

If the table has a row action on it, then it’ll have a column for row actions. When there are no rows, there are no row actions to display so it shrinks down in size. 
If the table has NO row actions on it, then there will be no column for row actions. Then when you go to add a row, the column will not appear. 

I believe that the table is adjusting to make sure that there is ample space to see what the fields are. If there are 7-8 row actions, this makes sense to be to be the best UI. What are your thoughts on this? Do you believe that the row should be removed entirely as if there is no column there?

I would prefer to have the action column to remain consistent. UX is odd otherwise when moving rows between tables.