Boom may be boon in Congress

January 12, 2007 Friday
Sunrise Edition

SECTION: Local News; Pg. D01
LENGTH: 829 words
HEADLINE: Boom may be boon in Congress
BYLINE: JEFF MAPES, The Oregonian

BODY:

SUMMARY: Growth | The influx of people to the Northwest from other states could mean Oregon and Washington get more seats in the House

Because of strong population growth, Oregon and Washington each may gain a new U.S. House seat after the 2010 Census, giving the region a shot at more clout in Congress and in presidential elections.

Congressional reapportionment experts crunching the latest Census Bureau estimates say the two states appear to be on track to add seats in the new decade. Oregon last gained an additional U.S. House seat --its fifth --after the 1980 Census. Washington, which now has nine seats, gained one seat in 1981 and another in 1991.

"I have Oregon and Washington each picking up a seat, but not by much," said Clark Bensen, a Virginia-based analyst who advises Republicans on reapportionment strategy through his firm, Polidata. He puts Oregon in a slightly better position than Washington of winning a new seat.

Bensen's forecast looks at population growth over the past two years and projects what would happen if that growth continues until the 2010 Census. Both Oregon and Washington have grown by about 3 percent in the past two years, compared with national population growth of just under 2 percent, according to Census Bureau estimates.

Kimball Brace, of Election Data Services in Washington, D.C., based his forecast by looking at how congressional seats would shift if reapportionment were conducted now. Based on current population, neither state would gain a seat, he said. But he said the two are in the running for new seats if their growth continues.

"All we can say for now is you're close. It's possible for 2010, but a lot of things have to continue to change," said Brace, who typically advises Democrats.

New seats would give the two states added voting power in Congress and more representation on committees, where much of the congressional work is done.

It would also make the region more important in presidential elections, which are determined by a vote of the electoral college. Each state receives electoral votes equal to the number of their House and Senate members. Oregon and Washington have voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1988, while most of the states projected to gain seats after the next census lean to the Republicans.

Bensen projects that Texas will be the big winner in the 2010 Census, gaining four seats. Ohio and New York will lose two seats, he predicts, and California will not gain any seats for the first time since it became a state in 1850.

In Oregon, it would be up to the Legislature in 2011 to decide where to draw new congressional district lines. If it can't pass a plan signed by the governor, the job will fall to the federal courts. A commission that studied reform of the Legislature has recommended that the job of drafting district lines should be handled by a bipartisan panel.

But Gary Wilhelms, co-chairman of the panel and a former Republican legislator, said he is skeptical legislators will surrender redistricting power.

"If either party --and it doesn't matter which one --perceives it has an advantage, it is not going to want to give that up," Wilhelms said.

It's too early to say where a new district would be created. It could be carved from the largely suburban districts held by Democrats Darlene Hooley and David Wu, both of which have had strong population growth. It's also way too early to know who would run for a new seat.

Currently, Democrats hold four out of five of the state's congressional seats. Republicans could have a good shot at a new seat carved mostly out of the outer Portland suburbs and other parts of the Willamette Valley. But that could also have the ripple effect of making Hooley's and Wu's districts more safely Democratic. Even if Oregon does not get a new congressional seat, the lines for the existing districts will be redrawn in 2011 to account for population shifts within Oregon.

In Washington, a bipartisan commission draws new district lines that must be ratified by the Legislature. David Olson, a political science professor at the University of Washington, said that in 1991, the commission made sure to protect congressional incumbents and then drew the lines of the new district to make it as competitive as possible.

Olson said he expected the same to happen again if Washington gets a new seat, which he predicted would be somewhere in the Puget Sound area.

Bensen, the reapportionment expert, said officials in the two states would be smart to work with the Census Bureau to make sure they get as complete a count as possible. That includes helping the bureau find such hard-to-count people as the homeless, those in institutions and migrant workers. Bensen noted that for purposes of reapportionment, everyone in the country is counted, regardless of their immigration status.