UPDATE: Chalkbeat‘s Nic Garcia rightly pointed out that another Congressional seat would mean another seat on the State Board of Education. Then, because Colorado cannot have an even number of members on the Board of Ed, an at-large seat would be added to the board. In short, a new Congressional seat would translate to two new board seats.
Given Colorado’s massive population growth, it should come as no surprise that the state might gain an extra Congressional seat to give us enough players for a delegation kickball team. A new article by Sean Trende at RealClearPolitics calls out Colorado as a potential taker of a seat in the 2020 reapportionment fight. Trende created a formula to help him predict where, in 2020, the next seats might come from and explained why this is important now:
“This is important because the census governs the apportionment of House seats and electoral votes by way of a nasty formula that I won’t expound upon here. By applying the formula to the latest estimates, we can get a sense of where things are headed for the 2022 congressional elections and the 2024 presidential elections.”
According to his calculations, Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina, and Oregon each would get an additional Congressman (or Congresswoman). Texas would gain three and Florida would gain two. While there is no clear guidance on where within Colorado the seat would be, some think there could be an additional seat in Weld County or Douglas County, which are two rapidly growing areas.
It’s important to keep this all in perspective; however, as Colorado was supposed to get an eighth Congressional seat in 2011. As it turns out, despite Coloradans’ clamorous kvetching about population growth, other states have population growth, too. Who knew?
Stay tuned for 2020 when we’ll take a deeper dive into this subject. You know, when people are actually paying attention.