New York State will lose another House of Representatives seat in 2012

Below average population growth (effectively 0% growth) will result in New York state losing yet another seat in the House of Representatives.

Therefore, New York state's power in the federal government will continue to wane as it has for the past 40 years.

To deal with the recesion and job loss, New York's Democratic Party plans to raise income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, real estate transfer taxes, and create 137new taxes, and raise tolls and public transit fares.

The only growth industry left in New York state is going to be renting one-way moving vans and mortuaries.

All the young people will move to low tax, low cost states where they can have a chance to live a normal, American middle class life (i.e., their own single family house, 2 cars, and a garage). That dream is impossibly expensive in New York state.

December 24, 2008, 11:11 am
Census Data Suggest More Power for South in CongressBy Bernie Becker
Official results for the next census will not be released for a few years. But it’s never too early to predict how population changes will affect the makeup of Congress through the next reapportionment.

A report released Monday predicts significant changes in the makeup of the House of Representatives in the next decade that could see a continuation of the trend of the South gaining even more seats. The report also cautioned that current economic factors could affect some of the population trends driving the most recent predictions.

After each decennial census, the 435 seats in the House are reallocated among the states to account for shifts in population. The changes made following the upcoming census will be put in place for the 2012 elections.

The study released by Election Data Services, which used recent Census Bureau projections, predicts the continuation of shifts that occurred in recent reapportionments — when states in the Sun Belt and West gained seats while those in the Northeast and Rust Belt lost them.

The report projected that, if House seats were redistributed based on 2008 population estimates, Texas would gain three seats, while Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Utah would all gain one additional seat. Except for Utah, all of those states gained at least one seat following the 2000 Census.

Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania would likely lose one seat apiece. The last four -- including New York state -- all lost seats following the most recent census.

But the president of Election Data Services also said that, because of the recession and bust in the housing market, population shifts in the next two years might look different than those that occurred earlier in the decade.

“What you’re seeing is a slowing down of mobility. People are not moving as much,” said Kimball W. Brace, citing a Pew Research Center study released last week that reported 13 percent of Americans switched residences between 2006 and 2007, the lowest number in the six decades the government has tracked the trend.

“So some short-term trends in population may be a better barometer of what we’ll be looking at in 2010,” Mr. Brace added.

To account for those trends, Election Data Services constructed five separate models that project 2010 population figures. The broadest projection takes into account population changes since 2000, while one model only includes changes that occurred in the last year.

All five models projected that Texas and Arizona would gain a seat in addition to those predicted from the 2008 population projections, giving Texas an extra four seats and 36 overall, while Arizona would get two more seats, giving it 10 overall. The models also suggested that Ohio will likely lose a second seat, taking it down to 16 House seats, and that Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri will all lose a seat apiece once the census is complete.

With the final reapportionment count still years away, it’s tough to say which party will gain more from changes in the 2010 Census. But, if the study’s numbers hold true, Republicans might have reason for optimism.

Of the seven states predicted to gain a House seat in at least one of Election Data Services’ projections, Senator John McCain won four in November’s presidential election (Arizona, Georgia, Texas and Utah). Republicans will also be the majority in four of those state’s House delegations (Florida, Georgia, Texas and Utah) in the 111th Congress. (It should be remembered that state legislatures usually have the final authority to draw Congressional districts.)

Meanwhile, of the 12 states the report found most likely to drop a House seat, President-elect Barack Obama won 10, losing only Louisiana and Missouri. The 10 states Mr. Obama captured will all have Democratic majorities in their delegations to the next Congress as well.

But Democrats can also point to recent successes in the states likely to get new House seats. In the 2006 and 2008 elections, the Democrats gained a net of eight seats in the seven states predicted to gain extra seats, collecting a net of three apiece in both Arizona and Florida.