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Reapportionment Includes Unlawful Alien Residents


By Paul M. Weyrich
June 6, 2006

I received a call from a long time friend from California. To say the least he was not in a happy mood. “Is anyone back there discussing the impact of immigration on reapportionment?” he asked me. My friend is former State Senator Bill Richardson, who served 24 years in the California Legislature. He is also the Chairman of Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners of California. He left the Legislature to become more effective with Gun Owners. Run by Larry Pratt in Washington, Gun Owners has become one of the most effective lobbies in Washington.

Richardson writes for his own website:

“They [Democrats] benefit from the flood of illegal immigrants—not only from the possibility that they may someday register to vote as Democrats -- BUT THE DEFINITE IMPACT THEY HAVE ON THE CENSUS.

The Democrats’ dirty little secret is knowing how to use illegal aliens, although NOT registered to vote to help them elect a disproportionate number of left wing Democrats to office.

Few know that reapportionment of legislative districts is based on census data, i.e. the body count, NOT registered voters. The law requires approximately the same number of people (men, women, children and babies) living with-in the boundaries of each district.

Illegal aliens, out of necessity and for cover, gravitate to population centers, where they can mingle with those who speak their language. Therefore they enlarge the ranks of the Mexican American population. Like African Americans, not a high percentage of Mexican American register to vote, leaving an opportunity for a small body of left wing activists inside the Mexican area to run for office with financial help from outside left-wing liberals.

As an example, imagine a border state X with a census count of 2,000,000 of which 20% are illegal aliens (400,000). According to law each state Senate district should have 100,000 people living in it. In state X out of the population of two million, including illegal aliens, only a million can vote legally, because they bother to register to vote. The state’s registered voters are half Democrat and half Republican. One could assume that in a normal election all the seats would be competitive with either party having a chance to control the legislature.

However, look at what could happen if liberal Democrats are in control of the Committee responsible for reapportioning state X. Using just three districts as an example, see what can happen with an abundance of illegal aliens:

Population (D) (R) illegal aliens and unregistered citizens
District 1 100,000 20,000 5,000 75,000
District 2 100,000 30,000 10,000 60,000
District 3 100,000 10,000 45,000 45,000
Totals 300,000 60,000 60,000 180,00


By careful maneuvering of district lines, the Democrat reapportionment Committee has done the following: By combining the large number of illegal aliens and unregistered Americans, with a relatively small number of registered Democrats and a smaller group of registered Republicans, they create a sizeable number of safe Democratic seats. In doing so, it requires them to cram as many registered Republicans in as few districts as possible. They don’t care if there are a few Republicans in the legislature as long as they are not in the majority and as long as they don’t influence legislation.”

Richardson told me that California would be a red state if it were not for illegal aliens. “People wonder,” said Richardson, “how California can elect a Ronald Reagan by a million votes the first time and still have a state Senate and state Assembly controlled by the Democrats. The reason is that the Democrats have controlled reapportionment for the past 50 years.” The same would hold true for two term Governor Deukmejian and two term Governor Pete Wilson. Statewide, voters will vote more conservative than would be reflected by the legislature. And now that millions of illegal aliens are assisting the Democrats with re-apportionment the state will always elect an overwhelming number of Democrats to the state Senate and state Assembly. Moreover, by a two to one margin, California will always send a liberal Democrat Congressional delegation to Washington.”

“Directly”, said Richardson “although unknowingly [illegal aliens] play a dominant role in how California is governed—without one of them ever registering to vote. Districts that are gerrymandered so overwhelmingly one sided make a joke out of the democratic process in California and other border states. This is jut another reason illegal entry into this country must be stopped.”

I seldom use other people’s material to this extent but I felt the point Richardson was making is so relevant to the current debate in Congress over Illegal immigration that I thought he ought to put it in his own words.

Frankly, in following the debate on the issue in both the United States House of Representatives and Senate, I have not heard word one about how illegal aliens affect re-apportionment. It is all the more reason that the House should stand firm in its position.

Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.