The new 2010 Census figures are out. You can find all the charts, spreadsheets, etc at the Census web page:
http://2010.census.gov/...
For New Yorkers the bottom line is that we lose the 2 seats projected earlier. Florida gains 2 seats to match us as the 3rd largest states at 27 Congressional seats.
Despite the fact that Florida's population remains over half a million smaller...
There is no perfect formula that can take into account unequal state boundaries and populations in a single-seat reapportionment structure such as ours. Particularly with an arbitrarily fixed number of seats. The current formula used always ends up with VERY unequal representation.
Doing some quick math...
By straight division... total pop: 308,745,538 divided by 435 seats... 709,758.86 citizens per perfect size Congressional seat.
New York should have 27.3 seats. Florida just under 26.5. By equaling these out at 27 it means that each New York rep represents 717,707.48 citizens while each Florida rep represents 696,344.81 citizens.
On the one hand that difference seems small enough given the overall population but when you consider that New York's population is 576,792 or 81.27% of the correct Congressional seats total (709,759.86) greater than Florida's and yet Florida and New York are equal at 27 it makes for a very substantial inequality indeed.
It gets worse though.
Wyoming remains the smallest state at 563,626. They are guaranteed one seat. If you took that number as the size of a Congressional seat then New York would be due 34.38 Congressional seats and Florida 33.36 seats. There would be a total of 547.78 seats in Congress under a formula that tried to make that sort of equalization.
New York's difference of 576,792 lost population between us and Florida is larger then Wyoming's total population of 563,626.
Personally I believe we need to do away with winner take all single-seat districts and put in place multi-member seats with a proportional representation system.
This would go a long way to dealing with the lack of representation of voices outside of the 2 main parties, more accurate representation of voices subsumed within the 2 main parties and also a leveling of the inequalities of representation presented by the numbers detailed in this diary. While it would be extremely controversial and incompatible with our current system as outlined in the Constitution, a true equal measuring of representation would require cross state lines in creating multi-seat districts. Only then would these inequalities be eliminated.
As with any system, solving one problem may well cause another directly or indirectly so I am not sure that completely eliminating numerical inequality across such a large population is necessary or advisable but when the differences equal as many as 7 seats as between Wyoming and New York or a "lost" population in New York greater then the total population represented in Wyoming then it is clear that the current formula has problems that need addressing.