Population Shifts Shuffling House Seats
I hope you all had a great Christmas, but it’s time to begin burning off that big holiday dinner and get back to work. One story which may have slipped beneath your radar over the holiday was flagged by James Joyner on Wednesday, as detailed in the Politico. As per constitutional dictate, each ten years we have to take a look at the shifting populations of the several states and reapportion their representation in the House accordingly. Initial projections of where we will stand in 2010 are coming in and it looks like the big winner will be the Lone Star State.
Texas will lose some influence in Washington when President George W. Bush leaves the White House, but a new study finds that the Lone Star state will be the big winner in the upcoming congressional reapportionment.
The study, from the firm Election Data Services, projects that Texas will pick up three seats in Congress.
Other states seeing a smaller increase, and projected to pick up one seat, are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Utah. Of course, where there are winners you must also find losers. States who should plan on losing a seat are Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Observant readers will see a pattern developing here. With the exception of hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, the losses are all coming from the former industrial strongholds in the Northeast and Midwest. The winners are in the deep South and the Southwest.
In bygone days, population changes (with the exception of immigration) might come down to a simple matter of which areas were “outbreeding” the others. Today, however, people seem to be less attached to staying in the area of their birth and following the jobs and opportunities where they might be found. But what does this do to the conventional wisdom regarding party strength and ideology in the various states and regions? As Joyner points out, things change.
There are no signs that the movement from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt is about to change. It’s easy to imagine, for example, the domestic auto industry surviving only in the South. But these people moving from the Northeast to the South bring their attitudes and cultures with them, which largely explains why Virginia and North Carolina (and the greater Atlanta area) are suddenly so friendly to Democrats.
So this may turn into short term good news for Republicans, but it is worth remembering that new residents bring their own views and opinions with them into the mix. States are changing in both directions as the shifting population moves around. New York is losing a seat in the House. Will the Democrats figure out a way to remove one of the last Republicans in their delegation? Or will it begin to tilt a bit more toward the red side of things? How long will places like Tennessee or Missouri stay in the GOP column if large amounts of union minded labor move in to follow the auto industry jobs? The new mix in the next decade may wind up looking significantly different than what we’ve become accustomed to.
3 Responses to “Population Shifts Shuffling House Seats”
You should carry your statements to their natural conclusion. If many formerly Repubican areas are becoming more Democratic while no place that is currently Democratic leaning is going to become Republican, the real quesiton is how can the Republican Party sustain itself. The answer is that it cannot and thus, the U.S. will become a onen party state much like the deep blue states like Michigan and Mass. that become are evacuating from due to horrible economic and demographic conditions.
Many of the newcomers are Latinos, not Northerners. I suspect that a huge chunk of the population increase in Texas, Arizona, Florida, Nevada and even Georgia is coming from south of the border.
There is also a semi-reverse migration in motion. Here in Tennessee we have many “half-backers” who once moved from the Midwest to Florida and then moved halfway back to East Tennessee. The climate and economic situation is better here than in, say, Michigan. But it's cheaper and less hectic here than in much of Florida. I run into folks like this all the time. Politically, they are all over the map; if they left Florida because of cost then they are probably fairly liberal, but if they left Florida to avoid all the immigrants and crime, they are most certainly conservative.
You continue to suffer from the myopic view that today's trends are immutable, unchanging and everlasting. Go back to 1980, and you would never see how the Democrats could never be in power again.
The only safe prediction is that change will occur, and that despite your fear, or desire, the kabuki dance between Republicans and Democrats will continue, one in power now, the other soon enough, and very little real, discernible change noticeable regardless of which is in power at any given moment.