Thread: Huge Illegal Population to give CA more Congressional seats

Illegals may give state more seats in congress
U.S. Census doesn't distinguish citizens from noncitizens
By Mike Swift, MEDIANEWS STAFF
Article Last Updated: 10/07/2007 02:37:40 AM PDT

Illegal immigration is channeling political clout to California and other border states from the Northeast and Midwest, according to a new report that predicts that California's undocumented population will equate to two seats in Congress following the 2010 Census.

Congressional seats have been migrating South and West for decades, as a result of the Sunbelt's rapid population growth. But the new report by a University of Connecticut demographer is an early take on how the nation's growing population of illegal immigrants would amplify that trend when seats in the House of Representatives are next divided up. It could foreshadow a partisan political fight over the results of the 2010 Census.

While illegal immigrants can't vote, the report says their growing numbers are affecting the nation's political balance because they are counted in the once-a-decade Census. That population tally determines how seats in the House of Representatives are split among the states and is also used to distribute more than $180 billion in federal aid each year.

The Connecticut report predicts that California, Arizona, Texas, Florida and New Jersey will gain seats in Congress after the next Census because of their illegal immigrant populations. Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, and Ohio will each lose a seat because they have relatively few undocumented immigrants. New York, which would lose two seats under the current system, would lose only one seat if illegal immigrants were excluded.

With the nation's population of unauthorized immigrants growing by about 500,000 a year, the report says illegal immigration is concentrating the power of voters in states such as California, Texas and Arizona, which have more seats in Congress per legal resident than many states where the number of illegal immigrants is much smaller.

"It's a balance of power," said Orlando Rodriguez, the demographer with the Connecticut State Data Center who wrote the report. "If you look at it, if the undocumented population is included, then you get a real shift in seats from the Northeast to the South and the Southwest, and it's a disproportionate shift because the people who are included in the count, not all of them vote."

The dilution of the principle that every voter has an equal voice in the nation's political life is one ramification of the immigration issue, say Rodriguez and immigration experts.

"That does raise pronounced fairness and democracy questions," said Steven Camarota, research director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., which favors reductions in immigration. "Politics in this way is a zero-sum game, and you can argue that legal immigrants should be represented, but it's tougher to say that illegal immigrants should be represented. Most people in the country, I think, would say that is unfair."

One Michigan congresswoman reintroduced legislation this year — a similar proposal several years ago went nowhere — that would change the apportionment of Congress to count only citizens. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution mandates that Congress be apportioned "counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed."

"Michigan is being outpaced by states that are growing because of heavy illegal immigration, and these states are being rewarded with more representation in Congress at our expense," U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Michigan, said in introducing her bill.

California would appear to have the most to lose if the apportionment of seats in the House were changed to be based only on citizens. According to Rodriguez' projections, California, which has one quarter of the nation's estimated 11.6 million undocumented immigrants, would be the only state to lose two seats after the 2010 Census if that population were not counted.

The nation's population of unauthorized immigrants has grown by 37 percent since the last Census, according to the U.S. Office of Immigration Statistics. California has about 2.8 million unauthorized immigrants, about 1.2 million more than Texas, the state with the second-highest total.

Illegal immigration is only one part of what many experts predict will be a bruising partisan fight over the results of the next Census, as Republicans and Democrats jockey to use the census for their political advantage, through apportionment and redistricting of seats in Congress and the state legislatures.

The voters may choose their representatives on Election Day, but to a degree, "the politicians choose the voters," said Tony Quinn, co-editor of the California Target Book, a nonpartisan analysis of the state's congressional and legislative elections, who predicts the battle over the 2010 Census "is going to be, to put it mildly, one hell of a fight."

The Census Bureau is mandated to count everyone living within the borders of the United States. Experts question whether it would be feasible for the Census to determine the immigration or citizenship status of more than 300 million people.

But one key issue after the 2000 Census that is likely to be debated again after 2010 is whether the count should be adjusted to reflect groups the Census tends to miscount more frequently, including immigrants.

That question was expected to trigger a huge dust-up after the 2000 Census, but the fight was muted after the net error in the 2000 count turned out to be less than in 1990. Because the census is more likely to miss categories of people who tend to live in Democratic strongholds — racial minorities, renters and immigrants — Democrats tend to advocate statistical adjustment.

The Census tends to overcount people more likely to be Republican — whites and affluent people, for example — meaning the GOP tends to oppose adjustment for legislative redistricting or Congressional apportionment. Because the Census count is closely tied to housing units, people who own more than one home are more likely to be counted more than once, experts say.

"You can assume there will be a big brouhaha over Congressional reapportionment, as well as state redistricting, in 2011," said Bill Cavala, a longtime Democratic redistricting expert in the state Legislature.

Quinn, who says counting illegal immigrants benefits Democrats because it increases population totals in Democratic strongholds, said any attempt to change that law would trigger a pitched battle.

"Anytime you want to change something with election law, the first question everybody asks is, who is benefited?" he said.

But Rodriguez, the Connecticut demographer, said illegal immigration actually may strengthen the GOP at the national level.

Because there are fewer legal residents per House seat in Texas, Arizona and Florida, illegal immigrants boost voter clout in those Republican-leaning states.

"It's incredibly ironic," he said. "I'm not taking a political position here, but you are in a sense disproportionately shifting control of the House to the Republican side, and giving them more weight than the Democratic side."

Contact Mike Swift at 408-271-3648 or mswift@mercurynews.com.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateoco ... ci_7110725

Mexican Democrats control the California Legislature for the same reason, most of the non-citizens are put into "Democratic" districts. As a result we have a "Big Nanny" government which has plenty of money to take care of anchor babies but no money to maintain or build new roads and water systems.

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