Immigration Reform and the Electoral Map

Here is my warped idea of the morning <sip>.
Say for the sake of argument that this new immigration bill will lead to a better reckoning by our government of exactly who lives where. It sounds to me like something like 15 million or so people will suddenly appear in the redistricting reapportioning plan. But where are they? Does one have to be a full fledged citizen to count as population for those purposes or are permanent residents and the like also considered? If so wouldn't places like California and New York be likely to gain the majority of benefit? I know here in Massachusetts we are told that the population has fallen 2 years straight but a quick look around seems to tell a different story. Would Texas offset the gain?
So the question is ....
Will this affect the map at all and if so will the effect be positive? What do you all think?

I saw something in BusinessWeek recently on the geographical distribution of illegal immigrants. While California, New York, and Illinois did have a sizeable number, so did Texas, Florida, Arizona and (oddly) North Carolina.

.. is that Wyoming will be losing more of its clout :)

whereas here in California, it is one for every 10 million. (slight number exaggeration)

But not exactly. The senate will always be out of balance just because every state gets two senators regardless. Small states will always be over represented.
However in the house of representatives X number of seats (435?) get divided and redivided based on population data. When you add in the latest wave of immigrants as supposedly will happen soon, the layout COULD change noticably.
This is also true of the presidential electoal vote.

One to DC and one to Utah. I don't remember however where I read it.

Geez .. now your getting into the whole why isnt DC represented thing. For that matter why isnt Puerto Rico ? i dont want to go there.
But without chnaging any rules, using things the way they are now ...
Remember from '04 there was the discussion that if Gore won NewHampshires 4 votes he would have won, but for Kerry to win he would have to carry all of Gores states but New Hampshire wouldnt be enough anymore .... he would need Florida or Ohio?
Thats how fluid these number are, populations shift and 15 million people is a lot of people to just plug in without getting a big swing.

I'm also in Mass. and like you I find the whole "we're losing population" thing to be at odds with what I see in the real world. I live in Somerville and the stats say we've lost population yet just in my neighborhood there's new housing from a parking lot that was taken out to put in a single family home to new construction condos ranging from 4 to 30 units. That's housing that didn't exist a decade ago that's now occupied -- yet we're losing population? Funny, we were gaining population until Bush got in office. Makes me think it's all a work to eliminate a " Massachusetts liberal Democratic" or two from the House.

Welcome to DU!! :toast: