Every seat in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania to need to be redrawn; Texas and California face major changes as well
Data just released – the last release before Census 2010 – confirm that U.S. Congressional Districts will have to be massively redistricted. Real Elections Project analysis shows that, because of 2000-09 shifts in population between states and within states, the boundaries of more than half of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives will have to be redrawn.
Redistricting will necessarily include every seat in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania will need to be redrawn. The estimate indicates that each of these states will lose one seat, except Ohio, which will lose two. After redistricting the constituents in these states — who now have 135 Representatives — will be down to 125.
In addition, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, Washington, and Texas will gain at least 10 seats in aggregate, going from 99 Districts to 109 newly drawn seats. Each of these states picks up at least one seat with Texas gaining three. Congressional lines in these states will also need to be redistricted.
A table presenting all of the state estimates is available here.
Beyond these 17 states, population shifts in other states will cause large changes in many Districts, even if the overall number of seats in a state remains the same. Congressional Districts within a state must be exactly equal in population; no deviation is allowed. Nine years after the last Census, over 131 seats now vary from their population ideal by at least 10%, a variation representing fully 30% of the House of Representatives.
See a table that specifies the extent of population changes within each Congressional District in the country here.
Andrew Beveridge, Real Election Project’s Technical Director said, “Much of the disparity has been driven by large population shifts since 2000. This includes large population shifts in California, Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Indiana, throughout much of the south and many other states that will force huge changes after Census 2010.”
See the map of population disparities between and among Congressional Districts here.
Based upon the Project’s estimates, there are 10 seats still in play, including a potential extra seat for Texas; a loss for California, Minnesota and Missouri and no pick-up for Washington and South Carolina; no loss for Illinois; a loss of only one seat for Ohio; a pick-up for Oregon; and an extra pickup for Florida.
Craig Gurian, the Project’s Director, noted that, “We are now just one year away from the release of official reapportionment data from Census 2010. The large-scale redistricting that we have found to be required does not even include the redistricting that properly needs to be done to eliminate gerrymandering, nor the redistricting that will be necessary for state-level legislative seats. In order to prevent the redistricting the follows Census 2010 to be yet another example of an incumbent-protection scheme, The Real Elections Project will jumpstart a fair redistricting process by developing model plans even before 2010 data are available and putting sophisticated but easy to use tools to assess redistricting plans in the hands of the public.”
