Results of census
Texas gains four seats in U.S. House
The Founding Fathers thought a census was so important they made it almost the first order of business – Article 1, Section 2 – in the new Constitution and decreed that after that first count an “actual Enumeration” be conducted every 10 years thereafter.
The 2010 census, whose results were released Tuesday, was our 23rd. It is a snapshot of where our nation stood last April 1 when, we learn, there were 308,745,538 U.S. residents, up from 281 million in 2000.
The census shows a maturing country with a growth rate moderated by two recessions- one of them the worst since the Depression – over the course of the decade. The growth for the decade just ending was 9.7 percent, compared to 13.2 percent from 1990 to 2000.
The largest increases were in the South and West, foretelling a significant shift of political power and federal resources to those regions. Combined, they grew by 23 million people, while the older, established regions of the Northeast and Midwest grew by 4.2 million.
The winners: Texas will gain four seats, bringing its delegation to 36, in the 435-member U.S. House. Florida will gain two House members, bringing it to 27, the same size as New York. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina and Washington each will gain one. So will Utah, which effectively ends the District of Columbia’s hopes of gaining congressional representation in exchange for awarding Utah a seat.
The losers: Ohio and New York will lose two House seats each. Louisiana is the only Southern state to lose a seat – because of Hurricane Katrina. Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania also will lose one each.
California, with over 37 million people, still has the largest House delegation, at 53 seats, but for the first time the state did not gain a seat after the census. Texas gained the most people since the last census – its population rose by 4.2 million to over 25 million. The biggest gainer percentagewise was Nevada, up over 35 percent – an unruly growth rate it is now paying for with high unemployment and widespread foreclosures in its overbuilt, overstocked housing market.
The immediate political calculus was that the population shifts to Republican-controlled areas will help the GOP. What will help the Republicans even more is that the 2010 elections gave them control of the statehouses and legislatures that will do the redistricting.
After redistricting, each House member will represent an average of 710,767 people. In 1790, it was 34,000. The Founders would have been astounded and, we like to think, pleased by their handiwork.
Scripps Howard News Service