Rip Van Winkle works for the Tallahassee Democrat

There is an article at the Tallahassee Democrat website. I have no dispute with anything in the article but it makes me scratch my head. Why? What is being said in the authorless article has been true for thirty years at least. Why is this newsworthy now?

Florida had 5 congressmen in the 1950's. It has 25 today. They expect 27 or 28 next decade. That's an increase of 2 or 3. That's hardly the biggest because FL gained 10 seats over the after the 60 and 70 census combined. New York had 43 congressman as late as 1970. Now the state has 29. People are leaving the North for the South and West and have been doing so for 50 years. Just look at the reapportionment for states CA, AZ, TX, FL, NY, OH, MI, IL, PA to name a few over the last fifty years. The article even states the huge shift in congressional seats. So nothing in the article is new. Why is it news then?

Rip Van Winkle is alive and well at the Tallahassee Democrat.

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Southern and Western states are growing so much faster than the rest of the country that several are expected to grab House seats from the Northeast and Midwest when Congress is reapportioned in 2010.

Demographers and political analysts project that Texas and Florida could each gain as many as three House seats. Ohio and New York could lose as many as two seats apiece.

Such census gains would make Florida, which now has 27 electoral votes, an even bigger prize in the 2012 presidential race. Ohio's 20 electoral votes, won by President Bush, decided the past election but Florida's 27 swung the 2000 campaign - after 36 days of court fights.

"We'll be the envy of the country," said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political-science professor. "In presidential politics, bigger is better, and Florida is getting bigger while Ohio gets smaller."

MacManus and Brad Coker, director of the Mason Dixon Florida Poll, said Republican legislators probably will be able to grab two out of three new districts for their party. Depending on where Florida's growth is occurring, they said, a third new seat might be heavily African-American and Democratic.

"I wouldn't be surprised if two out of three new seats are Republican and that at least one of the Republican ones is in a Hispanic district," said Coker, who has been polling in Florida campaigns for several years.

Besides their redistricting advantage in the Legislature, MacManus said, Republicans stand to benefit from population growth in suburban counties north of the I-4 corridor. She said Pasco, Hernando and Levy counties have all had "intra-state growth" as newcomers first move to big cities, then retire to the suburbs or find jobs in less-dense areas.

With Democrats already having a virtual lock on California and Republicans normally favored in Texas, Coker said, "Florida will become the most important state" in presidential politics if it has 30 electoral votes - especially if the Sunbelt's gains take votes away from Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio.

''The states in the Midwest are going through a transition,'' said Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett. ''We're going from a heavy manufacturing economic base to a more service-oriented base, and that transition has been very painful.''

''But if you ever banned air conditioning,'' Bennett added, ''I think people would flock back.''

The projections are based on state population estimates by the Census Bureau. The bureau released its July 2005 estimates Thursday, showing that Nevada grew at a faster rate than any other state for the 19th consecutive year, followed by Arizona, Idaho, Florida and Utah.

Rhode Island, New York and Massachusetts lost population, as did the District of Columbia. The populations of North Dakota, Ohio and Michigan grew, but at a slower rate than others.

Overall, the country grew by 0.9 percent in the past year, to about 296.4 million people.

Every 10 years, the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are divided among the states based on population counts in the census. The numbers also are used to divvy up votes in the Electoral College, used in presidential elections.

Clark Bensen of Polidata, a Virginia firm that crunches political data, said population shifts over the past 65 years have dramatically changed the regional makeup of Congress.

In 1940, Northeastern and Midwestern states had a total of 251 seats in the House, compared with 184 for states in the South and West. Today, Southern and Western states have the edge, 252-183.

''Basically, it took two generations to have a complete shifting of the power base,'' Bensen said.

Texas has been a big beneficiary of the shift in political power, making a Supreme Court fight over the boundaries of its congressional districts even more important, said Bruce Buchanan, a political-science professor at the University of Texas.

Republicans redrew the boundaries in 2003 after taking control of the state legislature, and then gained six House seats in the 2004 elections. Democrats and minority voting groups sued.

Kim Brace of Election Data Services, a firm that also crunches political numbers, said population shifts can affect the regional issues that preoccupy Washington.

''The old industrial-era towns and their particular issues are no longer holding as much sway in Congress,'' Brace said. ''There are less people speaking their message.''