[fireworks] ♪ announcer: on monday, the u.s. census bureau released the results from the 2020 census, revealing the population, shifts in population, causing some to gain or lose a seat in the u.s. house of representatives. for more, we spoke to reporter on "washington journal." >> joining us this morning is

the national reporter with the hill newspaper, here to talk about what this means for congress. ress. your headline, six states to gain house seats, seven to lose seats. was this expected? guest: alabama, rhode island, and minnesota -- all three of those states kept their seats. good news for them. there were at least a couple of states, texas and florida that the game seats but we all thought they were going to gain more seats. outside estimates thought texas might gain four and florida would gain at least two. they only ended up gaining one. a lot of looks thought arizona would gain a seat.

basically a congressional district in los angeles county moved to phoenix over the last decade. it was not quite enough to get there. some of these margins that states kept or lost seats were incredibly narrow. new york lost its district by eight -- 89 people. but his two buses full of people if they stayed in new york, new york would've kept their extra seat. that's even house went to minnesota, they kept their seat by 26 residents. it tells you just how close a lot of these final seats are decided. host: could be states contest when it is so close? guest: i think we will see some, especially a place like new york. we will see what they are going to do. there's always some a litigation

about accurate counts, where people live, anything like that. with the pandemic, the shift in the census, they had to make up a lot of procedures on the fly in the face of the pandemic. i think we will see a little litigation around that. things could get nasty when two states end up suing each other, those lawsuits go straight to the u.s. supreme court. it will be headed to the court soon. host: what does this mean for political power? guest: it's a pretty minor shift. it continues a trend we are seeing the last century of people moving out of the northeast and into the sunbelt. one difference is for the first time, california lost a house seat instead of gaining one. in the last census they stayed flat at 53. that tells you people are moving

out of more expensive areas and into the sunbelt and some of these growing areas. we talked about explosive growth in texas, arizona, nevada, the entire mountain west. the number of electoral college votes will shrink in states that joe biden one -- won. though states are the ones that are changing the most quickly. looking at the lens, that is sort of looking backwards as opposed to looking forwards with the shift in the coming years. host: does this impact the 2022 election cycle for congressional seats? guest: much more deeply than the states gain and lose seats. they are required to redraw their political boundaries. there are going to be new lines

in four states. six states have at-large members are they don't draw a district lines. the other 44 states will get together and draw new maps. that will matter over the long run. the numbers we got yesterday were statewide numbers. we know who will gain a seat. we don't yet know the data that will tell us where those seats actually go and how the balance of power shifts. it is going to shift and not just in the state for gain or lose seats. host: how many states have required an independent commission or source to do their legislatures? guest: i should've counted before we went on air. the number has grown in recent years.

new mexico just past an advisory council that will create this and they would could tinker with the legislature if they want. that was the big trend of redistributing in the last decade. they want to create as many of these new districts as possible to draw the lines out of the state legislatures. looking at where either party controls the redistricting process, it is clear republicans have a substantial advantage. they have the power to draw somewhere around 187, 189 -- of course you've got big pockets of democrats even in red states. to present the democrats who have the power to have about 80 districts. republican start off with an advantage. they are controlled by that independent redistricting

commission or the six states that have one member but don't get to redraw the congressional maps. host: states like california and new york spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get a complete count. that is a quote from your story. why would they spend money to get an accurate count, what is on the line? guest: the u.s. census is the number the federal government uses to decide how they will spend money. the funding for the department of education, you man-made government program, there are some estimates that say for every single person that a state counts in a u.s. census is worth something like $20,000 or $30,000 over that tenure. we are talking about billions of

dollars at stake. states like california and new york want to make sure absolutely everybody got counted. rhode island pioneered a program where they would pay people to live in the state. i guess that works. other states like west virginia tried to do the same thing, they tried to pay people to live there, that did not work. in a state like texas, they did spend a lot of money on a complete count campaign. they used some covid stimulus money in the last part of the last year. texas and florida both lost out on what we thought was going to be an extra seat. texas got two, we thought they would get three. florida got one, we thought they would get two. it is not clear to me yet that this would've made a difference. texas was about 200,000 people

away. host: our question for our viewers this morning's did you move to a new state in the last 10 years? you write in your piece another quote from your story, we continue to see movement to the sunbelt but not quite as dramatically in the past. the great recession held it up a little bit in the giving of the decade. people are leaving coastal costly places, i think california is a piece of that. that is from william fray. what did you find, what did he find in these numbers? guest: one of the things that really stood out to me with these population numbers over the last decade is just how much of a hangover we are still feeling in the great recession. one of the things they said is the u.s. population grew by 7.4% over the last decade, seconds lowest growth rate for any senses since we started counting people.

the only other one that was slower was the decade of the 1930's, lori dealing with? the depression. the hangover from this, these economic disasters we go through could last decades or longer. during the recession -- during the depression, we have the massive innovation boom that created the baby boomer generation. we have that population back. this time around, that is not happening. people are getting older, they are having fewer kids. they are contributing what they call a baby bust. even some of the growth rate was slowing before the recession. we are going to this long-term trend of people staying in place, they are not having families that are as big as they were in the past. immigration is slowing down

first because of the recession ended in the later part of the decade because of some of the trump administration's policies. we are living longer so we are getting older. we have more and more people paying into the system who are taking the retirement benefits they earned. at the same time we have fewer and fewer people contributing to the programs that administer retirement programs. we are going to be dealing with the effects of the recession from 2008, 2 thousand 9, 2010 as long as you and i are doing this. host: you could find his reporting on the census and other topics if you go to thehill.com, follow them announ'n journal, every day, your phone calls live on the policy issues

that impact you. wednesday morning, progressive initiatives to expand the supreme court. mike davis, article three project, about efforts to oppose expanding the court. and, plans by states and localities to change policing practices. c-span's washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m. eastern wednesday morning. be sure to watch washington journal saturday morning at 8:00 p.m. eastern for a live session for high school students preparing to take the u.s. history exam. they will take your calls on the facebook comments, text messages and tweets about the exam.

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