Texas To Get More And More U.S. Representatives, Thank God

You know what this country needs? More congressmen and -women from Texas.

And it's going to get them.

Election Data Services, a company that..ummmm....specializes in providing data about elections, has made its initial study of Census Bureau statistics for the 2010 Congressional re-apportionment, and it predicts Texas will pick up at least three, and maybe four, Congressional seats.

It would make Texas the only state to pick up multiple seats.

But, EDS president Kim Brace tells Hair Balls, there's no way to tell where in Texas those new seats will be.



"The Census Bureau's data is only a single number for the entire state," he says. And the data that will actually be used to divvy up the 435 House seats among the 50 states has yet to be created.

Still, EDS studies long- and short-term trends to estimate what the likely results will be. Right now, the short-term trends show Texas picking up three seats, but the long-term data (which obviously can be more off) show the state getting a fourth seat.

The redistricting that will allocate those seats will be done by the Texas legislature, so there's no need to worry about crass politics invading the process.

Suprisingly, EDS calls for California to actually lose a seat for the first time since it became a state.

"The whole housing downturn has hit them hard," Brace says.

California holds the record for most seats added in a single reallocation, he says, although he can't recall whether it's five or seven and whether it happened in 1980 or 1990.

-- Richard Connelly