The Final Count

The 2020 U.S. census figures are in, and the news is troubling for Democrats trying to figure out how to hold onto the House . . . and reaffirms the usefulness of the Senate.

The population was 331,449,281 people in 2020 and grew 7.8 percent in the previous decade - the second slowest growth in the U.S. population.  But, as always, the growth was in the South and the West, which adds even more U.S. House seats to those regions at the expense of the Northeast and Midwest. Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Oregon each gain one seat, as does Montana, which since 1993 has had only one at-large House seat.  But Texas, the state everyone inexplicably wants to move to despite the bad weather, the dumb politicians and the dearth of civilization in general, is the big winner; it gains two seats. Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia each lose one seat, as does California, an outlier in the westward trend.  Apparently, the California dream is more of a nightmare now, as people move out of the state as quickly as they moved there back in the 1950s and 1960s.

New Jersey keeps all of its seats, and so Mikie Sherrill is likely to remain my congresswoman should she re-elected in 2022.  I don't expect my town to be drawn out of her district.

The shift of House seats to mostly Republican-friendly states as the House delegations of Democratic states continue to contract could help the GOP regain the House when the Republicans are already within striking distance of doing so, thanks to the Squad demanding that the police be defunded in the 2020 elections.  But it's not necessarily etched in stone that the Republicans will win back the House next year.  Progressives inspired by President Biden's agenda are probably ready to come out in droves for next year's midterms, and he's moderate enough among mainstream voters to keep them in a voting coalition with progressives.  If that sounds unthinkable, bear in mind that the Democrats won back the House in 2018 despite gerrymandering and voter suppression because enough one-time Republican voters were appalled by Trump and the GOP to cast a ballot for Republican candidates, even as progressives were motivated by Republicans to come out and vote against them.

There is a caveat: Republican legislatures control the majority of state legislatures once again, and they're already passing restrictive voting laws - Florida, a state that's already trending Republican anyway, is the latest - while hoping to find new ways to draw congressional districts in their favor.  And for the record, I don't expect the Democrats to gain seats in the House of Representatives with one of their own in the White House, but they just might be able to win as many seats as they did in 2020 - 222 seats - or cut their losses by the slimmest possible margin.  A House party caucus of 218 seats is needed for a majority. The Democrats might be wise to try to hold on to or even expand their majority in the Senate, which the Republicans managed to do with their majority in 2018 thanks to staggered terms. 

Still, this all comes as cold comfort to states that lost House seats, even if they actually gained population - especially New York, which dropped from first in population in 1960 to fourth now, even though New York City remains the country's most populous city.  New York State's population grew to over twenty million people in the 2010s, but out of the hundreds of thousands of people it counted, New York came up 89 short to avoid losing a House seat.

Not 89,000.  89.  Eighty-nine, about the size of wedding party (pre-COVID, of course).  If more folks in the Empire State had filled out their censes forms when they got it, that wouldn't have happened.

An obvious solution to account for population gains in states that lose House seats is to add more House members.  But the House of Representatives, set at 435 members since 1911, is set at that number in part because nativists wanted to suppress the voting power of urban and foreign-born Americans (sound familiar?), which is why Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 was passed.  But another reason may be because adding more House members could constitute a fire hazard in the House chamber.  And after the events of January 6, adding more members may not be a great idea.  Perhaps the chamber could be enlarged to add more members, maybe by incorporating the old House chamber between the new chamber and the Capitol Rotunda - but you'll have to talk the Capitol's official architect about that.  Unless and until the size of the House of Representatives can be enlarged - which might also allow House members to represent fewer people and be more in touch with their districts - Democrats are going to have to work with what they have if they want to stay in power.

Maybe finding more persuadable votes in the South and West could help.  There must be some way they could win Montana's soon-to-be Second Congressional District.