Census Shows Jersey Grew 4.5%, Still Will Lose a House Seat

TRENTON — Trying to make sense of the just-released Census data is like trying to digest a steer at one sitting.
To be sure, the results were good and bad. Good, because apparently more people have chosen to live in New Jersey, since the population is 8,791,894 or 4.5 percent over the 2000 figure. The net result is bad because that number, and the percentage, lagged the westward movement of residents.
As Census numbers get digested, the number of “for sale” signs seems to proliferate throughout the county. Many have, or plan to sell their Garden State residence and take up residence in states with lower taxes and warmer temperatures.
It is quite likely that nearly every reader knows a family member or acquaintance who has made the decision to exit the state either because of its real estate tax struc-ture, its estate taxes or other ways that bank accounts can be thinned by taxation.
Thus, the Garden State will drop one seat in the House of Representatives, from 13 to 12. The sprawling Second Congressional District, of which Cape May County is part, may expand, but that’s uncertain at the present, and will be left to a bi-partisan commission tasked with redrawing district lines.
U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, 64, is a Republican who will take his oath of office for another term on Jan. 5 in Washington, may be wondering just how much larger his district may become when redistricting is accomplished.
The Second District appears to be the largest, geographically, in the state, encom-passing all of Cape May, Atlantic, Cumberland, and Salem counties.
It also includes portions of Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties.
According to a Census release, the U.S. resident population includes the total num-ber of people in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The resident population of the United States on April 1, 2010, was 308,745,538 an increase of 9.7 percent over the 281,421,906 counted during the 2000 Census.
“Apportionment” Link to a non-federal Web site is the process of dividing the 435 memberships, or seats, in the House of Representatives among the 50 states based on the population figures collected during the decennial census. The number of seats in the House has grown with the country. Congress sets the number in law and increased the number to 435 in 1913. The Constitution set the number of represen-tatives at 65 from 1787 until the first Census of 1790, when it was increased to 105 members.
The first decennial census was conducted in 1790 and has been taken every ten years as mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Since the first census, conducted by Thomas Jefferson, the decennial count has been the basis for our representative form of government as envisioned by our nation’s Founding Fa-thers. In 1790, each member of the House of Representatives represented about 34,000 residents. Today, the House has more than quadrupled in size, and each member represents about 19 times as many constituents. In 2000, each member of the House of Representatives represented a population of about 647,000.
The apportionment population consists of the resident population of the 50 states, plus the overseas military and federal civilian employees and their dependents liv-ing with them who could be allocated to a state. The populations of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are excluded from the apportionment population because they do not have voting seats in the U. S. House of Representatives.
The apportionment totals are calculated by a congressionally defined formula in ac-cordance with Title 2 of the U.S. Code.