California to lose seat in Congress for 1st time
Census shows lag in population growth; Texas, others gaining
WASHINGTON — California will lose a representative in Congress for the first time in the state’s history, according to new numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Monday.
California will still have the largest delegation in the House of any state by a large margin for the next decade, though its closest competitor, Texas, gained two seats, making the margin 52 to 38. But California’s population growth lagged behind that of the country as a whole since 2010, and with the House capped at 435 members, it joined Rust Belt and Northeastern states including West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York in surrendering seats to states that have grown far more in the past decade.
The announcement kicks off
what could be a contentious redistricting in California over the next year, a process that will reshape congressional maps and will leave the state’s 53 lawmakers in a game of musical chairs to keep their jobs.
It will be a new experience for California, which gained congressional representation after virtually every census from when it joined the union in 1850 until 2010, when it remained flat.
The redistricting process will still take time, as the data necessary to redraw districts will be delayed for several more months. The Census Bureau has promised it will arrive by Sept. 30. Outside experts who have analyzed population data expect that the Bay Area’s delegation will remain largely intact, with Los Angeles County the likeliest to lose a seat.
“Slow growth rates in parts of Los Angeles County mean those regions are likely to see their influence reduced in Sacramento and Washington, while relatively high growth rates in the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Bernardino/Riverside County Inland Empire mean those areas are likely to increase their influence after the 2021 redistricting,” Rose Institute fellow Douglas Johnson said in a statement accompanying a report he helped author for the Claremont McKenna College organization.
California’s population in 2020 was 39,538,223, a growth of 6.1% over 2010. But that was the smallest increase for the state going back to 1910, the period for which data was readily available. It also trailed the national gain of 7.4%.
California’s political lines for the 2020s will be redrawn through a nonpartisan process for the second time, thanks to a ballot measure that state voters approved in 2008 to take reapportionment out of the hands of the Legislature. A 14member citizens redistricting commission, consisting of five Democrats, five Republicans and four unaffiliated members, has already been selected and is holding meetings.
Still, politicians may attempt to influence the redrawing process. When the nonpartisan system was used for the first time in 2011, ProPublica reported that Democrats organized groups that claimed to be local community members to testify representing party interests. Democratic officials denied the report.
Fortythree of California’s 53 congressional seats are now held by Democrats, with only a handful of true swing districts located mainly in Orange County and the Central Valley.
Monday’s announcement starts a sprint to redraw the districts in time for the February 2022 candidate filing deadline for the June primary elections. While the California Constitution requires maps to be redrawn by Aug. 15, the state Supreme Court extended the deadline to Dec. 15 in light of census data delays.
The 2020 census was beset by problems, including lengthy litigation over policies by the Trump administration that attempted to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted toward state populations. They ultimately were stopped from going into effect.
The coronavirus pandemic further delayed census takers from conducting the decennial population count. California spent a record $187 million on outreach to ensure an accurate tabulation, more than six times what it spent in 2000 and 2010 combined.
In a news conference announcing the results, census officials emphasized they were confident in their counts despite the problems.
Overall, the nation’s population growth was the secondlowest in history, the Census Bureau said. It now totals nearly 331.5 million.
Seven congressional seats shifted between 13 states, the smallest such change in the history of the apportionment process. Many of the changes were smaller than predicted, with several states holding onto seats they were expected to lose.
California was joined by Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia in losing one seat apiece. Texas gained two seats and Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon each gained one.
The competition was close: Census officials said that if New York had just 89 more people, it would have kept the House seat it lost and Minnesota would have dropped one instead.
California Republicans were quick to cast the results as a referendum on Democratic policies, though the states that gained and lost seats were a mix of blue and red ones.
“It is not surprising that California would lose a seat in Congress for the first time in state history because years of failed Democrat policies have taken our state backward,” said state GOP Chair Jessica Millan Patterson. “Californians will have one less voice to speak for us in Washington, which proves yet again that it’s time for change and real leadership.”
While Republicans control state governments and the redistricting process in more states than Democrats, including some of the states that picked up seats in Congress, it’s not clear how redistricting will affect the makeup of Congress. Some of the flows of migration within the U.S. are also likely to affect the makeup of the voting population in those states.