AP: Census Count May Complicate Obama's 2012 Bid

[GratefulDad]

AP: Dec 19, 2010 – 2:38 PM
.
aolnews.com/2010/12/19/census-count-may-complicate-obamas-2012-bid/?icid=maing%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec2_lnk1%7C32348

"The 2010 census report coming out Tuesday will include a boatload of good political news for Republicans and grim data for Democrats hoping to re-elect President Barack Obama and rebound from last month’s devastating elections.

The population continues to shift from Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states to Republican-leaning Sun Belt states, a trend the Census Bureau will detail in its once-a-decade report to the president. Political clout shifts, too, because the nation must reapportion the 435 House districts to make them roughly equal in population, based on the latest census figures.

The biggest gainer will be Texas, a GOP-dominated state expected to gain up to four new House seats, for a total of 36. The chief losers - New York and Ohio, each projected by nongovernment analysts to lose two seats - were carried by Obama in 2008 and are typical of states in the Northeast and Midwest that are declining in political influence."

 

[Petergee]

The story is based on the very dubious assumption that when someone moves from one state to another, he changes his political allegiance to that of the majority in his new state.

November’s elections put Republicans in control of dozens of state legislatures and governorships, just as states prepare to redraw their congressional and legislative district maps. It’s often a brutally partisan process, and Republicans’ control in those states will enable them to create new districts to their liking.

This is a horrifying travesty of democracy. Why doesn’t the USA have the electoral borders drawn up by an independent electoral commission?

 

[manualman]

The story is based on the very dubious assumption that when someone moves from one state to another, he changes his political allegiance to that of the majority in his new state.

This is a horrifying travesty of democracy. Why doesn’t the USA have the electoral borders drawn up by an independent electoral commission?

I think the idea is that Texas (for example) is SO red in presidential elections that a few new blue voters won’t make any outcome difference. The state will still go red, but will do so with more electoral votes. New York (or wherever) will still go blue, but will do so with less electoral voters.

As to the second idea, please don’t get the idea that this is anything NEW. Take a look at how most of Chicago’s black caucus congressmen’s districts look on a map. They have been drawn for a generation to ensure a continued black majority. You could just as easily redraw them in such a way to have more districts 60% white and 40% black and have several fewer black congressmen. But that would be racist.

Seems to me that we should have roughly rectangular districts that disallow such ridiculous manipulations. But we don’t. And somehow we muddle on. Besides, who would make up an “independent” electoral commission? Martians? Seriously, when it comes to congressional politics, NOBODY is independent.

 

[Suudy]

The story is based on the very dubious assumption that when someone moves from one state to another, he changes his political allegiance to that of the majority in his new state.

One thing I don’t think is mentioned is the changes in birth rates over the last few decades. This was discussed back in the 2004 campaign by some pundits. But interestingly, the states with the highest fertility rates tend to be more conservative. See this article for some numbers. Note the top 10+ states (with the largest fertility rates) were for Bush and the bottom 10+ states were for Kerry.

So, part of this data could be reflected in the changes in population. In fact, looking at the data on this site and sorting by birth rate, the top 10 are:

20.3 Utah
16.7 Texas
16.7 Alaska
16.5 Idaho
15.4 District-of-Columbia
15.3 Mississippi
15.3 Arizona
15.2 New-Mexico
15.2 Nevada
15.2 Georgia
15.1 Wyoming

And the bottom 10 are:

12.6 Florida
12.1 Michigan
12.0 Pennsylvania
11.9 Massachusetts
11.8 West-Virginia
11.5 Rhode-Island
11.5 Connecticut
10.4 New-Hampshire
10.3 Maine
10.2 Vermont

One conclusion that is obvious to me: conservative states are having more children. This increases the population of those states, and they are more likely to be raised conservatives, tilting the population towards conservatives. And I’m not the first to think this. This article discusses the concern over falling birth rates in liberal strongholds. From the article:Liberals, he writes, "have a big baby problem. They’re not having enough of them, they haven’t for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result.”
And I think that may be the shift we are seeing. It isn’t necessarily people moving, but more people coming to a voting age in red states versus blue states.

 

[Petergee]

As to the second idea, please don’t get the idea that this is anything NEW.

I don’t. I’m just horrified that this old-fashioned blatant political gerry-mandering is still going on in the 21st century.

Besides, who would make up an “independent” electoral commission? Martians? Seriously, when it comes to congressional politics, NOBODY is independent.

Australia has had an independent electoral commission, made up of public servants, for 40 years now. The Commission organises and runs federal state, local and union elections, end even elections for some private organisations such as motorists’ associations. There are strict criteria for drawing up electoral boundaries, e.g. every electorate has to be as far as practicable equal in population to within plus or minus 5% at every election - the commission takes into account current populations and projected population growth rates. The boundaries must as far as possible avoid dividing natural communities of interest such as local government boundaries, geographical barriers, cultural and commercial connections bewteen different areas etc. The proposed boundaries for each new redictribution are published for public comment. All comments are published together with the names of those making them. The final borders are then set taking these comments into account.