New York lost a seat in Congress: how it will affect the state

New York will lose one seat in the House of Representatives next year, according to figures released by the US Census Bureau, with just 89 residents missing from the census to keep it. Writes about it New York Post.

As a result of the 2020 census, the number of US House of Representatives from New York will be reduced from 27 to 26, officials said.

But that fate could have been avoided if 89 more New Yorkers had participated in the census, said Christine Coslap, senior technical expert for the 2020 Census.

Jeffrey M. Weiss, a New York City law school professor and expert on census and county redistribution law, said Coslap's estimate shows how accurate the calculations were this year and how even a few dozen people can determine which states will get seats in Congress, writes NBC New York.

“Counting everyone really matters,” he said.

Weiss said it was too early to tell whether the pandemic prevented some New Yorkers from being counted in the census, such as people who left the city during the quarantine period or college students who left campus.

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He said another factor could be anti-immigration policies during the years when Donald Trump was president and the state's population began to decline.

“New York City was increasing its population before Trump took office. Trump has closed the gate to immigration. And it definitely made an impact, ”he said.

Many people move from New York to other places, politicians are regularly accused of expelling New Yorkers with high taxes. But Dan Lamb, a professor of public relations at the Cornell Institute, says the main problem is not how many people leave, but that too few people are moving to New York.

“New York is not losing people, it just doesn’t attract as many residents as other states,” Lamb said.

The Republican Party of New York issued a statement accusing Gov. Andrew Cuomo of declining the state's population, claiming that jobs are being destroyed and people are fleeing to other states.

The ten-year census took place at a time when New York was ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

Overall, the population of New York City actually increased by 4%. According to the results of the 2020 census, the state is home to about 20,2 million people, in 2010 there were just under 19,4 million. However, this growth cannot match the much larger population surges in other parts of the country.

New York has experienced “negative net internal migration,” which means that more people have moved out than have moved to the state in the past decade.

How the electoral districts will change will not be known until August, when more detailed census data are expected.

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New York is one of seven states that lost their seat in the House of Representatives after the census. Other regions in this group are California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

At the same time, five states each got one additional seat: Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon, and Texas - two.

The Decade Census determines how 435 House seats are allocated across 50 states based on recorded population changes.

For the first time in history, New York will receive fewer seats than Florida.

Losing a seat in Congress is not just a sign of New York's declining political influence in Washington. The census also determines the interstate allocation of $ 1,5 trillion in federal funding each year. And the smaller the population, the less money the state will receive.

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State and local officials have urged residents to take part in the tally, but critics say the Andrew Cuomo administration has delayed millions of dollars for the census. The funds did not arrive until the summer of 2020, when the census was already in progress.

Ultimately, the “self-response rate” in the state's census - responses by phone, internet, or mail - was just over 64%, about the same as in 2010. The nationwide “turnout” for the census was 67%.

"Today's news that New York will lose one seat in Congress is a sad but not surprising result of Andrew Cuomo's leadership," said Nick Langworthy, chairman of the New York Republican Party. "We have no future as a state as long as our federal representation continues to decline, our jobs continue to decline, and our residents continue to flee to other states."