No Runny Eggs

(H/Ts – Jon Ham and Moe Lane)

Color me shocked, SHOCKED that the Obama White House would strip control of the Census Bureau the Commerce Department, set to be run by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH). The Census Bureau, as everybody should be aware, is responsible for conducting the census, which forms the basis of every representative district.

Allow me to take just one aspect of that; the by-state apportionment of Representatives in the House of Representatives. That is, by law, set at 435, which means if one state gains a sufficient number of residents (legal and otherwise) to gain a seat, another state must lose one. For this exercise, I’ll run with the July 2008 Census Bureau estimates of population, take the 8-year rate of growth between July 2000 and July 2008 and extend that until 2010. The formula for determining the number of Representatives, once the population of the states is known, is pretty simple; divide a state’s population by the total population of the 50 states (excluding the District of Columbia, which does not have representation), and multiply by 435, rounding as necessary to get a total of 435.

Here’s where things get a bit interesting. Just like 2000, rounding at .5000 would yield only 433 Representatives. Therefore Since there are no states that would otherwise have no representation, the 2 states closest to but not over the magic .5000 also get bumped up, like California and Utah did in 2000. Currently, the projected states are (in descending order):
Rhode Island (currently 2 Representatives, both Democrats) – 1.477614508 projected Representatives
South Carolina (currently 6 Representatives, 4-2 Republican edge in the delegation) – 6.470898967 projected Representatives

Just missing the cut would be Oregon (currently 5 Representatives, 4-1 Democratic edge in the delegation, 5.463832819 projected Representatives). Given the estimate I used, Oregon would miss by roughly 5,026 residents.

South Carolina has a Republican Legislature and a Republican governor, and they last voted for a Democrat Presidential candidate in 1976. Oregon and Rhode Island both have a Democratic Legislature and a Democratic governor, and they both last voted for a Republican Presidential candidate in 1984. Which is more likely to magically “find” a net few-thousand-resident difference between South Carolina and Oregon, while not “finding” that net few-thousand-resident difference between Rhode Island and Oregon, so Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama get an ill-gotten buffer; a Census Bureau reporting to Commerce Secretary(-designate for the moment) Judd Gregg or White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel?

Revisions/extensions (10:44 am 2/8/2009) – Clarified that no state could have zero Representatives. The closest to that would be Wyoming, with a projected 0.763284928 Representatives.