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photo: GETTY IMAGES (VIEW OF HOUSE CHAMBER)
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Down for the Count
By JUNE KRONHOLZ The November elections definitely shifted the balance of power in Washington. Now the recession could do that, too, by changing the trends of population growth and migration around the country. Every 10 years, the Census Bureau’s population count is used by lawmakers to determine how to apportion seats in the House of Representatives, and most of the votes in the Electoral College, among the states. Because of population trends over the past few decades, Northeastern and Midwestern states have been losing seats to fast-growing Southern and Western states, which have been able to attract more retirees, job seekers and immigrants.
Just a year or two ago, New York seemed set to lose two seats in the House after the 2010 Census as many of its retirees fled south. Fast-growing Florida was expected to pick them up, giving each state 27 representatives. And North Carolina, which has seen massive Hispanic immigration, looked poised to add a seat. But the spreading recession and home-foreclosure wave could change those plans. Suddenly, Americans are less willing and able to move. That’s likely to have an impact on the congressional map and on the political power that some states will have in electing the next three presidents, snagging federal dollars and setting the national agenda. NEW YORK’S EDGE As a result, swing-state Florida is likely to gain just one seat in Congress (and the one additional Electoral College vote that comes with it), while reliably Democratic New York will lose just one, instead of two, according to separate projections by Election Data Services and Polidata, which analyze population trends for the Democratic and Republican parties. That will help the Democrats retain their House majority, and it also means that New York’s congressional delegation also will continue to have a bigger voice than Florida’s in deciding how Congress divides up federal funds. Texas, a reliably Republican state, now will get four new seats, including the seat that North Carolina was expecting. And solidly Democratic California, which was on track to lose a seat for the first time ever, may hold on to it after all. Americans have historically been willing to move to hot employment markets when jobs contracted at home. But with the current slowdown spreading nationwide and across almost every industry, there aren’t many hot spots to move to. Even if there were, falling home prices and the credit crunch have made it nearly impossible for many people to sell their homes or line up a mortgage to buy a new one. The Pew Research Center calculates that only 11.9% of the population changed homes last year, the lowest percentage since the U.S. Census Bureau began asking the question in the 1940s. At the same time, foreign immigration has slowed as jobs have evaporated. The Census Bureau reported that 1,038,000 immigrants arrived between July 2006 and July 2007. A year later—and even before the turmoil in the credit and stock markets began last fall—that dropped to 889,000. A few Southern and Western states that have been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis are also disproportionately affected by reduced immigration. Nevada’s growth rate fell by more than one-third between July 2007 and July 2008, and Florida’s and Arizona’s were down by one-fifth. Meanwhile, New York, which added 15,000 people between July 2006 and July 2007, grew by four times that many a year later. The same number of babies were born, the same number of people died, but 63,000 fewer New Yorkers moved away. TEN-YEAR LOCK The timing of the Census count is important because it will be used to apportion seats and electoral votes for the next decade, including the 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Those allocations won’t change again until after the 2020 Census, even if the economy and immigration quickly recover and Americans resume their previous moving patterns. That would leave residents of fast-growing states under-represented in the House and those in slow-growth states with an unfair share. The news may be even worse than it now looks for some states because the Census Bureau’s estimates were probably already out of date. Meanwhile, cash-strapped states like California have dropped get-out-the-count efforts that helped Census takers find poor, immigrant and transient households in the past, says Terri Ann Lowenthal, who publishes a newsletter on the census. Record foreclosures and job losses also could leave people uncounted, she adds. In a census trial run last year, some people who were behind on their mortgages or were living in foreclosed homes wouldn’t open their doors. “They were afraid it was the sheriff,” says Ms. Lowenthal.
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