The census results are in, and we now know which states gain and which states lose representatives to the United States House of Representatives (nickname: Congress, but it isn’t really Congress).<\/p>\n
This is very complicated, way too complicated to trust most political reporters and their bone headed editors to properly explain to to the largely uninformed people what is happening. At least not right away.<\/p>\n
Take Texas. Texas gains two seats. The reporting on this is, like, “Republican stronghold gets two more members of Congress! OMG there will be two more Republicans!!!!11!!<\/strong>” But no. Texas got two more seats because Texas grew in population size a tiny bit more than other states (but since Texas is huge, that small increase added up to two seats), but that growth was in people least likely to be Republicans<\/em>. A fair redistricting would produce two more Democrats in Texas.<\/p>\n The new numbers are all the result of the same demographic changes that we are expecting to blue-up the country generally. If redistricting is done fairly, these plus ones and minus ones around the country are simply the jiggle on the jell-o of the demographic shudder caused by old white men croaking off at a reasonable rate while younger brown people step in to take their part of the Great Pie Diagram of population.<\/p>\n The important thing now is to find your state-wide redistricting activist groups, and support them. Do that right now, time is of the essence.<\/p>\n And, keep elections free, dammit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The census results are in, and we now know which states gain and which states lose representatives to the United States House of Representatives (nickname: Congress, but it isn’t really Congress). This is very complicated, way too complicated to trust most political reporters and their bone headed editors to properly explain to to the largely … Continue reading On the census results and the new House Count<\/span>