As a result of shifting populations, Massachusetts may lose a congressional seat based on the 2010 U.S. census, according to an estimate released last week.
“All the numbers we’ve been running show that Massachusetts will be losing a seat from 10 down to nine and looks fairly certain that will be the case,” said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services Inc., the census-focused political consulting firm that released the report.
“They would need a population of 19,650 more people than they have to keep the seat and that’s a long way to go,” Brace said.
Along with Massachusetts, nine other states, including New York and Pennsylvania, will be losing one or more seats as well, while eight states, including Texas and Arizona, will be gaining seats.
“Unfortunately, it puts you into a circumstance where you have one less person pushing issues for Massachusetts, and if you look at the overarching country, states that are blue tend to be losing seats in the Northeast and Midwest,” said Brace. “Those seats are going to states which tend to be on the more Republican side.”
All 10 Massachusetts congressional seats are held by Democrats.
With the loss of a representative, Massachusetts would need to redistrict and vote down one of the existing representatives, weakening its power in Congress.
However, the national political scene will be affected more by this redistricting than the state itself, according to College of Arts and Sciences senior Matthew Stern, the spokesman for the Boston University College Republicans.
“All ten seats are currently held by Democrats, so the collaborative work of the Massachusetts congressional delegation tends to be very one-sided anyway, and more of a discussion than a debate,” Stern said in an email.
“Whether we have nine or 10 representatives, this collaborative effort will not change until we elect a delegation of members from both parties,” Stern said.
The census may be a net positive for Republicans on the national level, as many red states are gaining representatives, according to the study.
Texas, for example, is seen gaining four seats in Congress.
Census results are also used to determine the number of Electoral College votes each state receives for presidential elections, something that could end up helping the GOP in the 2012 election.
“We may witness that the loss of a congressional seat in a state that was carried by President Obama in the 2008 election may shift the Electoral College votes to the more conservative South or West,” said Stern. “This will help to electrify a GOP voting base for the next presidential election cycle.”
On the other side of the political spectrum, the BU College Democrats believe that it is “worrisome” on both a national and local level.
“Losing a representative is always a big deal,” said Emily Keller, the spokeswoman for BUCD.
“It means the state itself has to be redistricted, we have to watch out for gerrymandering and the political landscape changing,” Keller said. Gerrymandering is the act of district shaping for political purposes &- for example, purposefully making a district less competitive by only including parts of the state that strongly support one political party.
BUCD believes that this change could have a great impact on national democratic politics.
“It means that Massachusetts, a Democratic stronghold, has less influence in Congress. We want our state to have as many votes in Congress as possible, giving our state more power and leverage,” Keller said. “It also means that Massachusetts has one less vote in the Electoral College, taking away just a little power there as well.”
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