On December 21, 2010 the U.S. Census Bureau released its official apportionment results for congressional representation. The changes will be in effect for the U.S. elections in 2012, provided no legal challenges to the results significantly change the results.
Gain four seats
Texas
Gain two seats
Florida
Gain one seat
|
Lose one seat
|
Lose two seats
New York
Ohio
link to wikipedia article
The lead story on today’s (Massachusetts) news was 1 – over 50 Massachusetts cities and towns have elections today (out of 351 cities and towns), and 2 – the new Congressional maps have been released, showing how Massachusetts went from ten Congressional Districts down to nine.
My gut sense has been that although the maps for the State House and Senate were released in late October (and Governor Patrick signed them Thursday, November 3, 2011), the new map for the nine Congressional Districts would be released “as late as possible” to avoid rancor/conflict/stalemate. I want to see if Massachusetts is “quick” on this process, “slow” on this process, or “somewhere in between”. It turns out that every state has its own specific timetable – for example, the Florida Legislature is specifically required to redistrict the State House and State Senate districts during the 2012 Legislative Session [Florida Constitution, Art III, s. 16 (a)], and their Congressional Redistricting Plan is scheduled for their Legislative approval between January 10 and March 9, 2012 (there are currently 152 publicly submitted Florida redistricting maps). For Massachusetts, the key restriction is that, according to the Massachusetts Constitution, “Every representative, for one year at least immediately preceding his election, shall have been an inhabitant of the district for which he is chosen” – since the next election for State Representatives is Tuesday, November 6, 2012, the map for the State House must be released before November 6, 2011 in order to allow for the “one year residency” restriction. I believe the sense of that restriction carries over to both the State Senate and Congressional District elections/maps. Glad to see that we are on track!
Well, we already know that Florida is nowhere near close to getting their “official” Congressional District map. What about some of the other states listed above? Note: any state, regardless of losing or gaining Congressional seats, can redraw Congressional District Boundaries (except the following states which only have one Congressional Representative: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming).
The new map for Texas Congressional Districts (PLANC185) is currently available as a shapefile (Texas PLANC185). The creation data within the shapefile is June 15, 2011, although it looks like the actual legislative dates are:
June 22, 2011 signed in the State Senate
June 24, 2011 signed in the State House, and sent to the Governor
July 18, 2011 signed by the Governor
Although Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission has approved a Draft Congressional District map (Arizona Redistricting Map), the Commission only recently (Saturday, November 5, 2011) completed the 2nd round of public hearings. They still need to issue the “Final Map”. Note: after issuing their “Final Map”, all states must engage in the Department of Justice preclearance process before the maps are truly finalized. They seem to have no “official timetable”.
No comments:
Post a Comment