Redistricting if DC/PR Admitted

[rhg2052]

For the uninitiated, what would the upcoming redistricting look like if DC & Puerto Rico were both admitted as states in 2021? How would the five extra house seats that would come out of this affect the reapportionment for the other states that are projected to gain or lose?

[Storr]

In 1959 two House seats were added to Congress (one each for AK and HI) bringing the total to 437 until the end of the 88th Congress in January 1963. (IMO those seats should have been kept.) The big difference with Puerto Rico is that it would have the population for more multiple (5) Congressional seats at the time of statehood, which hasn't been the case since Oklahoma became a state. Ideally, it should be similar to Oklahoma's admission in 1907 where 5 seats were added to the House of Representatives. Changing the current permanent cap of 435 would require going through Congress amending or completely replacing the Apportionment Act of 1929 (which hopefully wouldn't be too difficult if we're in a scenario where Congress is able to pass DC and PR statehood). If the House's permanent size was changed, the likely result would be one seat for DC and five for Puerto Rico, resulting in a House with 441 members.

[Tangent: I'd like to see another three permanently added for Hawaii and Alaska's admissions, but I doubt that would be likely. It's always struck me as unfair that all 35 other states that either ratified the Constitution (NC and RI) or gained statehood after the initial ratification of the Constitution and weren't split from other states (ME and WV) were given at least one new permanent House seat upon statehood, except Alaska and Hawaii. The third seat comes from the fact Hawaii had the population for two congressional seats at the time of statehood.]

If the current apportionment setup is left unchanged, two temporary seats would be added until the redistricting following the next census (if statehood happened in 2021, special elections would be held that year in the two new states for both the Senate and House and the new House seats would exist until the end of the 117th Congress in January 2023), as the two new states would be factored into the nationwide seat distribution at that time. DC would take one seat, Puerto Rico five (possibly four with its population loss following Hurricane Maria) from other states. Of course the Senate would simply add four new seats. I don't know how the Senate's new seats classes would be decided, but I'm sure there's some guidelines about that somewhere among the Senate's endless book of rules.

[Sol]

In 1959 two House seats were added to Congress (one each for AK and HI) bringing the total to 437 until the end of the 88th Congress in January 1963. (IMO those seats should have been kept.) The big difference with Puerto Rico is that it would have the population for more multiple (5) Congressional seats at the time of statehood, which hasn't been the case sine Oklahoma became a state. Ideally, it should be similar to Oklahoma's admission in 1907 where 5 seats were added to the House of Representatives. Changing the current permanent cap of 435 would require going through Congress amending or completely replacing the Apportionment Act of 1929 (which hopefully wouldn't be too difficult if we're in a scenario where Congress is able to pass DC and PR statehood).

If the current Apportionment setup is left unchanged, two temporary seats would be added until the redistricting following the next census (if the statehood happened in 2021, special elections would be held in the two new states for both the Senate and House and the House seats exist until the end of the 117th Congress in January 2023), as the two new states would be factored into the nationwide seat distribution at that time. DC would take one seat, Puerto Rico five (possibly four with its population loss following Hurricane Maria) from other states. Of course the Senate would simply add four new seats. I don't know how the new seats' Senate classes would be decided, but I'm sure there's some guidelines about that somewhere among the Senate's endless book of rules.

IIRC they literally flip a coin (!)

[Roronoa D. Law]

It will likely be taken from the states that are borderline gain/loss right now. That means AZ and MT will not change at all. CA and AL will lose a seat. The fifth seat is between CA losing another seat or TX only gain 2 seats.

[Former President tack50]

Worth noting PR redistricting in terms of the seats themselves should be fairly easy. Playing with the old version of DRA and knowing PR will get 4 seats, it is fairly easy to see that PR redistricts itself into one San Juan seat, one eastern seat, one northern seat and one southern seat:

[Samof94]

It will likely be taken from the states that are borderline gain/loss right now. That means AZ and MT will not change at all. CA and AL will lose a seat. The fifth seat is between CA losing another seat or TX only gain 2 seats.

Does NY lose 3?

[Calthrina950]

Worth noting PR redistricting in terms of the seats themselves should be fairly easy. Playing with the old version of DRA and knowing PR will get 4 seats, it is fairly easy to see that PR redistricts itself into one San Juan seat, one eastern seat, one northern seat and one southern seat:

Do you know how these seats would lean, or potentially lean? I'd imagine that the San Juan seat would be Safe D, but some of the others would probably be tossups or even Lean R.