Reapportionment is Coming

by Tim Storey

In late December, the hard working staff at the U.S. Census Bureau released new state population estimates for each state. The estimates were for July of 2006 and offered a peek into the future as to who the winners and losers might be in the 2010 reapportionment sweepstakes. 

Reapportionment, a term often confused with and used interchangably with the word redistricting, is the function that the Clerk of the U.S. House performs after receiving the decennial census data at the end of each decade.  The Clerk runs the state population data through a formula established in U.S. statute to determine how many seats each state gets in the U.S. House.  The number of electoral votes for the president is also adjusted following each reapportionment.

After the release of the 2006 estimates, two demographic analysts, and old friends of NCSL's Redistricting and Elections Committee, took the new data and ran it through the formula to look at where states stand now and where they might be in 2010.  Both analysts noted that Hurricane Katrina's heavy toll on Louisiana would also likely include the loss of at least one seat in Congress.  It was possible that Louisiana was destined to lose a seat under normal population shifts, but it looks like Katrina sealed the fate. 

Redistricting consultant Kim Brace of Election Data Services ran the 2006 estimates through the apportionment formula and found that if the 2006 data were used, six states would gain seats in the U.S. House (and electoral votes), and seven states would lose a seat. The winners: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Texas (+2) and Utah.  And the states losing seats: Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Brace's full analysis is available here. 

Redistricting consultant Clark Bensen of Polidata Incorporated took the 2006 estimates and projected them forward to 2010 and found even more change.  Bensen projects these big gainers: Texas (+4), Florida (+2), and Arizona (+2) with Georgia, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Utah each gaining one seat.  Bensen's projected losers: Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York (-2), Ohio (-2) and Pennsylvania.  Furthermore, Bensen predicts that the average number of people in each U.S, House district would be close to 725,000 after the 2010 round of redistricting.  The complete Polidata analysis is here.

The 2006 estimates reveal a cornucopia of interesting demographic trends including that my beloved home state of North Carolina has replaced New Jersey in the top ten most populous U.S. states.  And if the estimates holds up through the 2010 census, it looks like California might not gain representation in Congress for the first time since it became a state in 1850.

 

Comments

[Lurker]

"state population estimates" link is defective.

[Timothy Storey]

The link has been fixed. Thanks for the heads-up.

[Randall Sherman, Secretary/Treasurer, Illinois Committee for Honest Government]

All that assumes that Congress keeps the size of the US House as it is, basicly unchanged since 1911. Given the growing evidence that census data is less than perfect, we may see a push to increase the size of the House by perhaps some 30 members to go into effect for the 2012 elections.

To some, a 30-member increase would seem like a lot. But that would only be a 7% increase in the size of the House compared to the 200+% increase in America's population since 1911. The added seats would also avoid a lot of expected (and costly) litigation over lost House seats.