TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/cal/pop2

Text File | 1991-05-13 | 7KB | 125 lines

                                                                              ««Two Hundred Years and Counting:

Reapportionment and Redistricting  



   Apportioning seats in the House of Representatives is one of the
most basic uses of census data, and also among the most contentious,
because it directly affects political power. The first presidential
veto was cast in 1792, when George Washington disagreed with the
apportionment method selected by Congress. After the 1920 Census, taken
at a time when over 50,000 immigrants were arriving in the U.S. each
month(13) and with the House fixed at 435 members, agreement proved so
difficult that there was no reapportionment at all--the only time this
has happened.

   Once the Founding Fathers had agreed to a bicameral legislature,
with a House of Representatives where the number of members would be
determined by the size of the population in each state, they needed
a method for maintaining equal representation in the face of rapid
population growth and migration. The census filled that role.

   Agreement at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 to have a census
every ten years bogged down in acrimony between northern and southern
states over how to include slaves. This dispute resulted in the com-
promise by which slaves were counted as three-fifths of a free person.
A deadlock in Congress after the Civil War over counting freed blacks
in southern states for apportionment ceased only with the passage of
the Fifteenth Amendment on voting rights after the 1870 Census.

   Throughout the nation's history, a variety of different apportion-
ment methods have been proposed and several different formulas used.
The current method, which has been used since 1940, is called the
Method of Equal Proportions.(14) The role of the census in apportion-
ment is to provide the population counts that, when used in the formula
determined by Congress, allocate to each state its proper number of
seats.

   The federal law that specifies April 1 as Census Day requires that
"The tabulation of total population by States...as required for the
apportionment of Representatives in Congress among the several States
shall be completed within 9 months after the census date and reported
by the Secretary to the President of the United States."(15)

   Within ten days of the opening of the next session of Congress, the
President must transmit to the Clerk of the House of Representatives
the census count for each state and the number of Representatives to
which each state is entitled, in accordance with the method of appor-
tionment selected by the Congress. And within 15 days after that, the
Clerk must notify each state governor of the number of Representatives
that state will be entitled to in the next Congress.(16)

   When Congress is reapportioned after the 1990 Census, California,
Texas, and Florida are expected to gain a total of 12 seats at the
expense of states in the Northeast and Midwest. Because of population
shifts during the decade. California is likely to pick up five seats,
Texas four, and Florida three. Other probable gainers include Arizona
and Georgia, each adding two seats, and North Carolina and Virginia,
each adding one.

   New York and Pennsylvania are projected to lose three House seats
apiece. Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio may each lose two, and six other
states one each: Kansas, Iowa, Massachusetts, Montana, West Virginia,
and Wisconsin. If these calculations, based on Census Bureau popula-
tion projections, are correct, California would become the first state
to have 50 seats in Congress. "If these trends continue,...the politi-
cal power base of the Northern tier will further erode," according to
the Population Reference Bureau.(17)

   In comparison with its Constitutional role in reapportionment, the
relationship of the census to redistricting--redrawing district elec-
toral lines within each state--is much more recent. Until the 1960s
and 1970s, state legislatures were almost entirely free to draw poli-
tical boundaries as they wished, but during the mid-1960s a series of
court decisions extended the requirement for equal representation by
population to the state and local levels. These decisions greatly
increased the demand for census data for redistricting purposes.

   In 1975, Congress enacted Public Law 94-171 to amend the Census Law
giving the Census Bureau a legal role in providing census counts for
redistricting state legislatures. Under the law, the Census Bureau
must provide population counts for small geographic areas to the leg-
islature and governor of each state within one year following the cen-
sus. For 1990, in addition to providing counts for such standard geo-
graphic areas as counties, census tracts, and blocks, the Census
Bureau plans to provide population counts by voting districts, aggre-
gated from blocks-level data, for states participating in a Census
Bureau program.(18) To date, all of the 50 states and the District of
Columbia have indicated that they are participating in this program.

   In 1991, all state legislatures and governors will receive 1990
Census counts tabulated by major racial groups and Hispanic origin for
the total population and for the voting-age population. The Census
Bureau will provide these data at the block level for every county,
city, town, and census tract/BNA in the state.

   Redistricting typically has been done by handfuls of political pros
negotiating out of the public eye behind closed doors in smoke-filled
rooms. One can find many examples in our history of unequal represen-
tation, both because districts have been manipulated--"gerrymandered"
--to serve political ends and because areas have not been redistricted
at all in spite of population change. At the time of the 1964 "one
person-one vote" Supreme Court decision, Louisiana had not been redist-
ricted since 1912.(19)

   Before the court's historic decision, Congressional districts with-
in a state could be--and often were--of vastly different sizes. For
example, in 1930, New York's largest district contained a population
of 776,425 per Representative, and its smallest district only 90,671.
In 1962, Maryland's largest district had 711,045 people versus 243,570
in its smallest district. Such disparities had the effect of giving
highly populated districts no more political influence than much smal-
ler districts.(20)

   Now, the combination of microcomputers and small-area population
totals open participation in redistricting to any group with a stake
in the outcome. The early 1990s are likely to see a cottage industry
in redistricting, as political parties, public interest groups, legis-
lators, and would-be political candidates, aided by a host of consul-
tants, vie to create political boundaries that both serve their own
interests and meet the legal guidelines. The courts may continue to
take a keen interest in redistricting by insisting on increasingly
strict interpretations of what constitutes acceptable definitions of
"one person-one vote."


Source:"Two Hundred Years And Counting," The Population Reference
        Bureau, Washington, D.C.