Population Loss Altering Louisiana Political Landscape (purple to red?)

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Population Loss Altering Louisiana Political Landscape
By JEREMY ALFORD
Published: October 4, 2005


BATON ROUGE, La., Oct. 3 - The two recent gulf hurricanes may result in a significant loss of population for Louisiana, and state officials are now virtually certain that Louisiana will lose a Congressional seat - along with federal financing and national influence - after the 2010 census.

Having dislodged more than a million people in southern Louisiana alone, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita are also likely to alter the state's political landscape, demographers and political experts say, reducing the domination of New Orleans over the State Legislature and increasing the influence of suburban and rural areas....

***

Within 48 hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Baton Rouge became Louisiana's largest city, doubling to about 800,000 residents....(Glenn Koepp, secretary of the Louisiana State Senate and one of the main officials in the state's redistricting office) said this population shift could actually be the early stages of the deterioration of New Orleans' long-term hold over the State Legislature. "If this holds true, there will be a significant political change," he said....(I)f the population fails to return to the parish in coming years, New Orleans may be confined to just a few seats in each chamber through redistricting, Mr. Koepp added. That could change the state's racial and partisan balance.

If evacuees from the Ninth Ward in New Orleans - a reliable bloc of 30,000 black voters that is traditionally easy to mobilize - choose suburban or rural areas over their urban roots in coming years, it could be a political blow to Democrats, said Roy Fletcher, a political consultant from Shreveport who helped elect former Gov. Mike Foster, a Republican.

"It would give a whole lot of a stronger foothold to Republicans in the Legislature and statewide," Mr. Fletcher said. "Louisiana has always been a swing state, a purple state that's both blue and red. You take the Ninth Ward out of that equation and you get a real shot of Republicans winning statewide office."...


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/04/national/nationalspecial/04census.html

[tanyev]

1. There's a flip side to that.

If a lot of them choose to stay in Houston or Dallas it could really change things in those voting districts.

[lcordero2]

2. I don't think that I would bet on it going red

since a lot of the Republicans probably felt abandoned too.

[Cha]

3. Yeah, unless they're

masochists..oh, wait.

[drthais]

4. not so fast...

I'm down here and let me tell you
I don't think for a minute that ANY combination
of Republicans vs Democrats will lean one whit
toward this administraton
all were abandoned - not just the poor and black

eveyone I know is absolutely FURIOUS at the powers that be

its just not that simple
and anyone who thinks it is
is not from here

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Thanks for an on-the-scene report, drthais! nt