State doesn’t gain any House seats with new census

Timm Herdt
Ventura County Star
December 22, 2010

For the first time since statehood, California will not add seats in Congress following the completion of the once-a-decade U.S. Census.

In a report to President Barack Obama on Tuesday, the Census Bureau released state-by-state population figures for 2010 and the accompanying changes in the makeup of the House of Representatives. California will retain 53 seats, the same number it has had for the past 10 years.

The big winners were Texas, which will gain four seats, and Florida, which will gain two. Five states, all in either the South or West, will gain one seat each, while eight states will lose one seat. Ohio and New York will each lose two seats.

The regional changes reflect the significance of Latino population growth over the past decade. Most of the states that will be gaining seats - including Texas, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina - are among those that have seen surges in the Latino population.

State keeps pace with U.S.

The report shows that California grew at roughly the same 1 percent-per-year pace as the nation between 2001 and 2010. Its population stands at 37,253,956, or about 12.1 percent of the 308.7 million people who live in the United States.

“It’s the first time we have not grown faster than the rest of the country,” said political analyst Tony Quinn.

He noted that California has gained seats in Congress after every census since it was assigned three seats in the 1860s, the first census after it was admitted to the Union in 1850. The apportionment of Congress did not change following the 1920 census, but that was because of a political decision that suspended the reallocation of congressional seats nationwide that decade.

The census found the nation’s population also growing more slowly than in the past. The declining U.S. growth rate since 2000 is due partly to the economic meltdown in 2008, which brought U.S. births and illegal immigration to a near standstill compared with previous years. The 2010 count represents the number of people - citizens as well as legal and illegal immigrants - who called the U.S. their home on April 1.

Redistricting process

The release of California’s numbers means only one critical step remains before the process of drawing new political districts can begin. The final step, which will be the release of census-block-by-census-block population data for California, is expected to take place in March.

The statewide population number means new congressional districts in California will each contain 702,904 residents, up from 639,000. The 40 state Senate districts will grow from 847,000 to about 931,000, while the 80 Assembly districts will grow from 423,500 to 465,500.

The primary purpose of the census, required by the Constitution, is to reallocate seats in the House of Representatives to reflect population changes over the previous 10 years so that each district in the country contains roughly the same number of people.

Over the years, court decisions have held that states need to be very precise in drawing districts that equally divide the population, with districts varying in size by no more than one to three people.

“For Congress, you have to be absolutely strict,” said Karin Mac Donald, director of the UC Berkeley Statewide Database , the nonpartisan entity that compiles and maintains redistricting data for California.

The deviation for legislative districts can be greater, as much as 5 percent, but the greater the deviation, the more likely districts could be invalidated by a court, Mac Donald said.

For the first time, the job of drawing new political districts in California will fall upon the Citizens Redistricting Commission, created by passage of Proposition 11 in 2008 to take the task out of the hands of the Legislature.

Membership of the 14-member commission was finalized last week, and it is expected to begin hiring staff and conducting hearings early in 2011. Once it receives the block-by-block population data for the state’s approximately 100,000 census blocks, the panel will have until Aug. 15 to approve a final set of maps.

“When this commission starts going, because they have such a short time, it’s going to be a freight train,” Mac Donald said.

Through a grant from the Irvine Foundation, the Statewide Database will open six redistricting assistance centers around the state at which people from various community organizations will be able to access census and electoral data and use mapmaking software to design proposed districts.

Community passions about political districting run high, Mac Donald said.

“If you can get people to a redistricting hearing, you’re going to hear from them,” she said. “These commissioners, they’re going to have a lot of work.”

Because the commission will have to follow criteria spelled out in Proposition 11, some of them conflicting, and will have to create districts almost exactly equal in population, they will be forced to make decisions such as splitting cities that will be unpopular in some communities.

“Theirs is going to be the worst job in the state of California,” Mac Donald said. “People are going to come in and complain, and they’re not going to be able to do anything about it.”

- The Associated Press contributed to this story.