The Census and Political Power
An expanding source of power
Under the Constitution of the United States a decennial count of all residents of the states of the United States of America was to be used to allocate seats in the House of Representatives among the states. Each state received one seat and then remaining seats were divided among the states based upon population. There was no limit placed on the number of Members of the House of Representative although no seat was to represent fewer than 33,000 residents.
However, until 1962, state legislatures were given a virtually free hand to draw district boundaries. The Constitution said nothing about equal representation within states. The failure to speak on this issue reflected the supremacy granted to states that had surrendered their soverignity to form a “more perfect union”
For example, in 1930, New York's largest district contained 776,400 voters versus only 90,700 for its smallest. In 1962, the Supreme Court changed this practice, declaring the "one man, one vote" principle, which required state legislatures to draw congressional districts that are equal in population.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 carried this principle one step further, requiring state legislatures to, wherever possible, draw districts that grant African-Americans, and later, Hispanics, a majority of the population within the district, thereby increasing the opportunity for those groups to elect representatives of their own ethnicity. When combined with the "one man, one vote" principle, this legal requirement expanded the need for an accurate head count by geographic area.
In 1975, Congress expanded the census' responsibility for legislative redistricting again. The new law required the Census Bureau to provide population counts for small geographic areas to state legislatures and governors so that those legislatures could also be redistricted.
In 1999 the Supreme Court ruled that statistical sampling and adjustment could not be used to apportion Congressional seats, although it can be used for apportioning state legislative seats and for allocation of federal and state expenditures.
More Highlights from the 2008 American Community Survey
The 2008 American Community Survey (ACS)was released in September 2009. These data were collected from January through December 2008 and do not fully capture the collapse of our economy that occurred in late 2008. Most of the year had rather slow economic growth. The good year of 2008 shows a decline in the real median income of 3.6% to $50,303 from 2007. Although Hispanic households were the hardest hit (and non-Hispanic white the least), black households median income of $34,218 continued to be the lowest in the nation. Black household income only fell 2.8% while the Hispanic household income fell 5.6% to $37,913. Asian household income of $65,637 fell 4.4% while non-Hispanic white fell to $55,530.
The poverty rate rose slightly to 13.2% , the first statistically significant increase since 2004.
The percentage of Americans who had health insurance remained unchanged although the source of insurance shifted from the private sector to the public sector. As more individuals lost their jobs(8.5% in 2008) and private sector insurance the number of people covered by government insurance increased from 83 million to 87 million people ( 28% of the population) . The percentage of children without insurance (9.9%) was the lowest since 1987 when it was first measured. The SCHIP program is responsible for this extraordinary achievement.
More than 15% of people 65 and older participated in the work force. Alaska had the highest percent at 23.2 while West Virginia had the lowest at 11.2 pecent. More than 20% of the men and almost 12% of women over 65 participated in the work force, either full or part time. This is the continuation of a trend of increased labor force participation among older Americans. At the same time there is a growing increase in the number of Americans filing for Social Security at an early age as the older worker finds it more difficult to get a job.
