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Friday, December 29, 2006
The musical chairs move our way
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The latest estimate of which states will gain and lose congressional seats in the next decade is out, and Georgia is still in line to pick up one new congressional seat, which would be the 14th. But the game of political musical chairs has gotten more interesting, and the state still has a shot at a 15th seat.
Based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2006 population estimates, a total of 13 seats would shift in the next redistricting process after 2010, an increase of 2 seats from last year’s calculation.
“The key factor in this year’s numbers versus last year’s is Katrina,” said Clark Bensen, who analysed the new Census Bureau data for an outfit called Polidata.
Because it lost population, Louisiana, along with New Jersey, has been added to the list of states that could lose a seat, with Oregon and Washington joining those that would gain one. Last year Texas and Florida were in line to pick up three seats each, but the storm tilted the advantage toward Texas, which now stands to gain four while Florida picks up two.
Uncertainty over whether these storm-related population shifts will be permanent puts more at play in terms of what the next congressional map will look like, Bensen said. He said the two states most likely to pick up a seat if another shook loose would be Georgia or South Carolina.
Georgia would need to gain another 100,000 by the end of the decade over its currently estimated population, while South Carolina would have to gain 50,000 to 60,000. But Georgia probably has the advantage, Bensen said, because its larger size makes it proportionally easier to reach that goal.
We’ll have four years to find out what the real numbers are going to be, but this has tons of implications. The first being this: Can a Republican legislature create new districts without shooting itself in the foot, as the Democrats have over the past two decades?
