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Meanwhile, California and New York are losing seats as new U.S. population data changes voting ranges for the House of Representatives.
Texas, Florida and North Carolina will get more congressional seats next year, the U.S. Census Bureau announced, releasing data from members of the House of Representatives and Electoral College votes.
According to the U.S. Constitution, 435 seats in the House and Electoral College votes cast by the U.S. president every four years are divided among 50 states based on population, with all states receiving at least one congressional seat.
Seats are redistributed every 10 years number of censuses per decade.
The release of census data that captured all U.S. residents in April 2020 on Monday sets the stage for a struggle that could reshape political power in Washington (DC) over the next decade.
Texas will receive two more congressional seats and five states — Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Montana and Oregon — will each get one congressional seat, the census office said.
Meanwhile, New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will each lose seats.
Shifting seats to states like Texas and Florida, where Republicans control state houses, could be enough to eliminate Majority of Democrats at home.
Republicans in both states have carried out aggressive gerrymandering in the past, a process in which maps are deliberately recreated to benefit one party over the other.
All states use census data for districts and to draw thousands of state legislative seats, a process that divides redistribution.
This work cannot be completed until the census provides more detailed block-by-block data scheduled for September. The delay has raised concerns about whether states will have time to complete the redistribution ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts do not have the power to limit political gerrymandering, but race gerrymandering – aimed at reducing the political power of specific races or ethnic groups – it is illegal.
The four most populous states in the United States — California, Texas, Florida, and New York — have a population of more than 110 million and will hold one-third of their seats.
The change of seven seats among the 13 states was the smallest seat change in all decades since the current method of calculating them was adopted in 1941, officials said.
Overall, the U.S. population was 331,449,281 in April 2020, 7.4% more than the previous decade, according to the Census Bureau. This rise is the second slowest in history since the 1930s, officials said.
Utah’s population grew faster than any other state, growing more than 18 percent since 2010. Only three states lost the population, led by West Virginia, as the population fell by 3.2%.
Washington, DC, the nation’s capital, grew 14.6 percent to a population of 689,545. Democrats in Congress have just passed legislation recognition of district 51 as a state, but Republicans are against the measure.
The territory of Puerto Rico destroyed by Hurricane Maria In 2017, the population decreased by 11.8 percent since 2010.
Wyoming remains the least populous state with a population of 576,851.
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