Oregon On Track To Add Seat In Congress

U.S. House - The state's growth positions it to gain a sixth representative after the 2010 Census
Friday, January 04, 2008
CHARLES POPE - The Oregonian
WASHINGTON -- If power in Congress is a measure of numbers, Oregon is likely to become a wee bit stronger after the 2010 Census.
Political demographers say Oregon is growing large enough and consistently enough to make it a strong candidate for adding a sixth House seat after the next census.
It would be the first addition to the Oregon delegation in 30 years.
"Earlier in the decade, we didn't see Oregon gaining a seat, but Oregon is now showing a strong potential," said Kimball W. Brace, president of Election Data Services, a Washington-based consulting firm that specializes in redistricting.
Brace's analysis, based on new census estimates, shows Northwest states booming, along with those in the Southeast and Southwest. The projections show population draining from the Northeast and Midwest.
Oregon's population is estimated to increase from 3.4 million in 2000, to 3.9 million by 2010, according to Census estimates.
Texas is likely to add four seats while Arizona and Florida would gain two each. Others likely to add at least one member of Congress are Georgia, Nevada and Utah. Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania are projected to lose seats.
The projection of seats, which translates into winners and losers, is an intense parlor game played out every 10 years in state capitals and in Washington, D.C. Under federal law, legislative and congressional districts must be redrawn after each census to preserve one-person, one-vote equality. With the census completed by the end of 2010, the job will fall to a new governor and Legislature to remake Oregon's political map.
By law, the president is required to report the census results to the U.S. House early in the year. Within 15 days, the clerk of the House must tell all the governors how many seats their states get.
In Oregon, as in most states, the lines are drawn by the state Legislature, which means the party in power shapes districts to maximize its prospects. If the Legislature can't agree, the secretary of state intervenes to decide state legislative districts and a federal judge decides congressional lines.
It can get messy.
"It's usually the case that the Legislature can agree on congressional districts," said Norman Turrill, first vice president for the League of Women Voters of Oregon, who helped write a 2007 study on redistricting in Oregon. "They don't usually have a conflict of interest like they do when they draw their own boundaries."
Even so, if Oregon adds another House district, some difficult questions will have to be answered: Should the new seat be used to shrink the sprawling 2nd District in eastern Oregon that is rich with Republican voters? Should the lines around Portland be redrawn to consolidate it into a single district rather than divide the city and its suburbs among three lawmakers? Should the oddly-shaped 5th District, which runs from Clackamas County to the coast, be adjusted?
Whatever decisions are made, the districts will have to conform to unforgiving math; they will each have about 700,000 residents.
Here's more math: The number of House seats is capped at 435, which means a gain by one state causes another state to lose. Congress could change the number, though it seldom has. There were only 105 members after the first census in 1790. In 1910, Congress set the number at 435, where it has remained ever since.
Even the census itself is under scrutiny. State populations are derived by counting everybody -- citizens and non-citizens alike.
In March, Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., introduced legislation directing the Census Bureau to count only U.S. citizens. The bill quickly stalled.
"It's one thing if we lose seats simply because of population loss, but it's another thing if we lose this seat because of illegal immigration, and that's exactly what is happening," she said at the time.
All of this for an outcome that will barely move the needle on the power index. Even with six seats, Oregon will remain one of the smaller delegations, a far cry from California with 53 and still trailing Washington's nine. With six House members, Oregon will have parity with Kentucky and South Carolina.
"We'll have a little more clout in Washington, D.C.," Turrill says, "but not significantly more."
Charles Pope: 202 383-7819; charles.pope@newhouse.com
©2008 The Oregonian