Census 2020 apportionments to be released by April 30; redistricting by Sept 30

[Kevinstat]

Both chambers of the New Jersey Legislature and the Virginia House of Delegates are up for election this November.  Those elections will almost certainly have to be held on 2010-era lines.  Fortunately the elections in all three chambers will be for two-year terms.  Lower house members in both states serve 2-year terms.  State Senators in New Jersey are elected for 2-year terms in years ending in '1' and for 4-year terms in years ending in '3' and '5'.  State Senators in Virginia serve 4-year terms, period, but are elected in the year before a Presidential election rather than the year after.  Both chambers in Louisiana and Mississippi are the same as the Virginia Senate.  Kentucky, the remaining state with odd-year Gubernatorial elections, has even-year Legislative elections.

[Kevinstat]

Both chambers of the New Jersey Legislature and the Virginia House of Delegates are up for election this November.  Those elections will almost certainly have to be held on 2010-era lines.  Fortunately the elections in all three chambers will be for two-year terms.  Lower house members in both states serve 2-year terms.  State Senators in New Jersey are elected for 2-year terms in years ending in '1' and for 4-year terms in years ending in '3' and '5'.  State Senators in Virginia serve 4-year terms, period, but are elected in the year before a Presidential election rather than the year after.  Both chambers in Louisiana and Mississippi are the same as the Virginia Senate.  Kentucky, the remaining state with odd-year Gubernatorial elections, has even-year Legislative elections.

Virginia will probably have elections in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Can you explain what you mean here?  I mean probably almost everywhere has something on the ballot every year.  If you're saying the Virginia House and/or Senate will be up in 2022 for a 1-year term under new lines, I had heard something about that but I have my doubts.  Were Virginia Senate terms commuted in the early 2000s (decade), when redistricting wasn't delayed, just the Senate wasn't to be up until 2003 after they were last up in 1999?  If Virginia was due to elect people to 4-year terms this year I could see commutation happening (although terms weren't commuted in Mississippi after legislators (both houses) were elected to 4-year terms in from old districts in 2011 (they served until late 2015 or early 2016)).  But my guess is that the State Representative elected this November and the State Senators elected to 4-year terms in November 2019 both serve until late 2023/early 2024.

[Kevinstat]

Both chambers of the New Jersey Legislature and the Virginia House of Delegates are up for election this November.  Those elections will almost certainly have to be held on 2010-era lines.  Fortunately the elections in all three chambers will be for two-year terms.  Lower house members in both states serve 2-year terms.  State Senators in New Jersey are elected for 2-year terms in years ending in '1' and for 4-year terms in years ending in '3' and '5'.  State Senators in Virginia serve 4-year terms, period, but are elected in the year before a Presidential election rather than the year after.  Both chambers in Louisiana and Mississippi are the same as the Virginia Senate.  Kentucky, the remaining state with odd-year Gubernatorial elections, has even-year Legislative elections.

Virginia will probably have elections in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Can you explain what you mean here?  I mean probably almost everywhere has something on the ballot every year.  If you're saying the Virginia House and/or Senate will be up in 2022 for a 1-year term under new lines, I had heard something about that but I have my doubts.  Were Virginia Senate terms commuted in the early 2000s (decade), when redistricting wasn't delayed, just the Senate wasn't to be up until 2003 after they were last up in 1999?  If Virginia was due to elect people to 4-year terms this year I could see commutation happening (although terms weren't commuted in Mississippi after legislators (both houses) were elected to 4-year terms in from old districts in 2011 (they served until late 2015 or early 2016)).  But my guess is that the State Representative elected this November and the State Senators elected to 4-year terms in November 2019 both serve until late 2023/early 2024.

I'm taking that from here:

https://twitter.com/ChazNuttycombe/status/1354508389682991104?s=20

Okay, thanks.  The post doesn't say that State Senate seats will be up next year (possibly because that was due to be a 4-year term under the current lines even before COVID-19, and no non-special State Senate elections will be held there this year, using the old lines even though they would normally use new ones).

[Kevinstat]

Fresh 2020 Census Count numbers would be out today, by law, usually.
But not this year.
The Bureau said yesterday that the deadline will not be met and while not mentioning a date of release, the new numbers will likely be out between February and April.

Just talking for my state, there's a big problem with that.
State legislature shuts up shop for business in April, meaning if the Census doesn't release data until April, you'd have to wait until the 2022 session for the legislature to pass a bill with the new districts for federal and state. But people are required to file for primaries in January and February.

That’s really not the Census Bureau’s problem .... (They had enough on their own).
It’s Indiana’s problem.
IN and it’s legislature could also work in September, right ? Other people have to work the whole year as well and not stop in April.

Well how it always worked in the past is the Census was released on time and they released new districts in a year that ends in 1, all complete by April.
They could have a special session later in the year to do it, but that means the state has to spend extra money not previously earmarked because the federal government bureaucrats can't meet a date of release. It's okay, we can just send the Census Bureau a bill for the costs, right?

What was the census bureau supposed to do? Do a rushed job and give the states messed up census data?

On December 31st Tender Branson stated in the census thread on page 51 that the Census Bureau said the data quality was high as he posted a press release from them saying as much. If releasing now is a rush job with messed up census data, then the press release was incredibly premature.

We've gone from having high quality data on 12/31 to waiting 9 months to release it to all the bodies required to use this information, which also screws over everyone filing for elections in 2022.

I know this conversation thread has gone beyond this, but I just wanted to point out that 12/31/2020 was never the deadline for the redistricting data, but for the total state populations (resident and overseas which add to the apportionment population) and number of seats in the U.S. House.  Going from the original deadlines (which are still on the books at this point) to the new deadlines, it's a 4-month delay on the apportionment totals and a 6-month (minus one day) delay on the redistricting data (although without COVID some states would have likely gotten their redistricting data by now, so it's more than a 6-month delay from what may have been expected in states with the earliest deadlines).  But it's not a 9-month delay.