New Year's Census Count Promises to Rejigger Political Map

Source: The Wall Street Journal

>>>>The federal government has hired tens of thousands of temporary workers to prepare for the 2010 Census -- a population count that could remake the political map even as the foreclosure crisis makes it more difficult to account for millions of dislocated Americans.

Early analysis indicates that Texas will likely be the biggest winner since the prior count a decade ago, picking up three or four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and Election Data Services Inc., a political-consulting firm. Other states poised to gain at least one seat include Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Florida and Utah.

Growth in these states is driven by factors including migration from other states, immigration and birth rates. The economic crisis has put the brakes on some of this expansion -- Florida just reported its first year-over-year population decline since 1946 -- but in general, Sun Belt states have grown faster than others over the past decade.

Since the number of seats in the House is capped at 435, the gains in the South and West have to be offset by losses elsewhere.
New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts and the recession-battered industrial states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania each stand to lose a House seat. So does Louisiana, where the population still hasn't rebounded from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which displaced so many residents that census takers face a difficult task in tallying them all.>>>>

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125114932446354887.html

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It's unfortunate that in many ways this reapportionment looks like it will be a replay of 2000, with the bulk of gains going to red states and the bulk of losses going to blue states. However, it also looks like it may not be that cut-and-dried, as several of these "Sun Belt" states are trending purple; the new congressional districts in these red states aren't necessarily going to be red districts.

**Mods, I apologize if this article doesn't qualify as LBN. I posted it here because it is the first place that I've seen the projected House seat gains and losses for the 2010 reapportionment.

:shrug:

and we were told to essentially treat it as a head count: if a residence looked like it was being lived in or could be lived in, record it as an address to which a census form would later be sent. I don't believe that legal/illegal immigration status is taken into account, but I'm not sure if that's a change from past censuses.

I thought it was changed this year so I can understand how places like TX expect big gains.

.... that is not counting years of slavery and other such things. The census is what another poster said; a head-count.

The census is a head count, not a status analysis. All heads have counted up to the persent.

No questions will address respondents' legal standing to live in the U.S. In decades past, citizenship status was asked on the long-form census, which went to a sampling of households, but that form was discontinued this year because the Census Bureau already gathers much of the information in separate community surveys.

Some critics of the census are angry about the lack of any attempt -- this year or in years past -- to classify undocumented immigrants separately. They carry the same weight as anyone else when congressional districts are redrawn even though they can't vote.

"United States citizens in one state should not be losing representation in Congress to illegal aliens in another state," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates tougher measures to stem illegal immigration.

Shockingly, I actually agree with the guy from FAIR, since counting illegal immigrants will result in more power being put in the hands of Texans.

The census has never cared who you are, or what you are.

Not now, not ever.

Texas districts are pretty heavily gerrymandered anyway, so given the Republicans dominate Texas, so 3 new districts will come about - for this I am sure.

I say that, and I'm actually a pretty pessimistic person... My bet is that at least one of these seats will go to the Dems, and over time (albeit maybe not within the next ten years) many of the seats the Repugs thought they had guaranteed for themselves indefinitely via gerrymandering will start becoming swing seats.

The reason I think the TX redistricting process may not be quite as frightening in TX as the Delay re-redistricting is that the Repugs aren't likely to be as dominant in the state legislature during the next redistricting. They currently hold a 76-74 margin in the state house and the Dems have been gaining a modest number of seats back every year since the R's captured it in '02. We may not be so fortunate if there is a Repug next year and weak Dems aren't turning out due to no Obama on the ballot, but, then again, the Repugs may not be able to fight TX's changing demographics.

Our state senate and Governor are likely to still be in Repug hands come the next redistricting cycle, so it is likely to be another pro-R map, but they may not be able to squeeze that much more juice out of this lemon. They weren't able to knock out Chet Edwards or Lloyd Doggett from the U.S. House with that map for one thing, which demonstrates that their plans certainly aren't guaranteed to automatically pan out. Additionally, the gains the Democrats have made at the local level and Obama's 11-point loss (as compared to Gore and Kerry's 20+-point losses) seem like indications of the direction that TX is trending, if much too slowly for my taste. I do believe that much of TX's growth has been among demographics that the Democrats' message could appeal to; the main problem over recent decades has been getting Democratic voters to turn out at the same level as the Repugs' birther and teabagger base.

It worked in the UK.

and, based on some of the crazy gerrymandering that occurred during the last round of redistricting, I think the map *is* pretty jiggered!

but that sometimes flips the state. Both Virginia and North Carolina went blue this time almost entirely due to new comers in those states voting Democratic. North Carolina is a much less red state than even just a decade ago.

It was great to see NC and VA become swing states. I see this happening in the future with TX, but wouldn't want to put any money down on how long it will take. Much of the problem is getting Democratic-leaning voters to turn out at the same rate as Repugs. It is at least good to see us trending more Democratic on the presidential level with Obama, unlike other southern states like LA and AR.

I hope it's my congressman (McCotter) that gets pushed out of office.