State congressional redistribution (Montgomery, Mobile, Huntsville: employment, centers, bill)

[RocketDawg]

Congressional district lines will be redrawn based on the 2020 census. The average each district should have is 718,000, ±5%, I believe.

Madison, Limestone, Morgan, and Marshall fill that bill with a total population of about 713,000, plus folks in the region have a lot of common interests. That should be one district.

Jefferson County has about 674,000 so they should have one, along with a small chunck of Shelby County. Once again, common goals.

Other major cities are a little tougher (e.g., Mobile and Baldwin Counties don't quite add up to enough for one representative - would have to find another 50,000 or so in another county).

I believe 2 of the districts must have a majority minority population. One of those might be the Montgomery Metro plus the Black Belt counties.

It'll be interesting to see how it all pans out.

[David1502]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

Congressional district lines will be redrawn based on the 2020 census. The average each district should have is 718,000, ±5%, I believe.

Madison, Limestone, Morgan, and Marshall fill that bill with a total population of about 713,000, plus folks in the region have a lot of common interests. That should be one district.

Jefferson County has about 674,000 so they should have one, along with a small chunck of Shelby County. Once again, common goals.

Other major cities are a little tougher (e.g., Mobile and Baldwin Counties don't quite add up to enough for one representative - would have to find another 50,000 or so in another county).

I believe 2 of the districts must have a majority minority population. One of those might be the Montgomery Metro plus the Black Belt counties.

It'll be interesting to see how it all pans out.

You are right about the four North Alabama counties being able to constitute one Congressional District.

However, the 7th Congressional District will need to take a large portion of Jefferson County in order to have a majority black district. Presently, the District is 63% black and a large potion of the district is losing population. In 202, the District had a population of 670,000, so I would imagine that the State Legislature will be looking at adding more of Montgomery to the district (and maybe other parts of southern Alabama in order to meet the population requirements. the 2nd District will lose most of Montgomery but will make up for that with the population growth around Auburn and Phenix City (due to growth at Fort Benning).

As far as North Alabama is concerned, at the present time, Jackson County is part of the 5th Congressional District and I wouldn't be surprised to see it added to the 4th District as it would be more similar to the other rural counties in that District. Even though, Jackson County is immediately adjacent to Madison County, it seems quite different culturally and it doesn't seem to have many folks who commute into Huntsville. When you leave Gurley and enter Jackson County, the population density drops off instanty and Scottsboro is about a 45 mile drive to the employment centers on the west side of Huntsville, so it doesn't seem that many folks commute to work in Huntsville.

[jasonhsv]

Has Marshall county ever been in the Congressional district with Madison county?

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by David1502

You are right about the four North Alabama counties being able to constitute one Congressional District.

However, the 7th Congressional District will need to take a large portion of Jefferson County in order to have a majority black district. Presently, the District is 63% black and a large potion of the district is losing population. In 202, the District had a population of 670,000, so I would imagine that the State Legislature will be looking at adding more of Montgomery to the district (and maybe other parts of southern Alabama in order to meet the population requirements. the 2nd District will lose most of Montgomery but will make up for that with the population growth around Auburn and Phenix City (due to growth at Fort Benning).

As far as North Alabama is concerned, at the present time, Jackson County is part of the 5th Congressional District and I wouldn't be surprised to see it added to the 4th District as it would be more similar to the other rural counties in that District. Even though, Jackson County is immediately adjacent to Madison County, it seems quite different culturally and it doesn't seem to have many folks who commute into Huntsville. When you leave Gurley and enter Jackson County, the population density drops off instanty and Scottsboro is about a 45 mile drive to the employment centers on the west side of Huntsville, so it doesn't seem that many folks commute to work in Huntsville.

I don't know what the data date is for the following (Principal Commuting Patterns in Alabama), but it lists 2,232 commuters from Jackson County into Madison County. Some time ago, I saw the numbers for Jackson commuters into Hamilton County, TN, and it was not that high. But for some reason, Jackson County is in the Chattanooga CSA, not Huntsville's. Maybe it's cultural, but it's not commuter numbers. But you're right - it's culturally different than Madison County.

There's a requirement for, I think, 2 of the 7 districts to have a majority black population. That's hard to do in north Alabama simply because there aren't that many blacks except in Madison County. Madison County 25%; Morgan 13%; Limestone 14%; Marshall 3.2%; and Jackson 3.5%. So the two majority black districts will have to come from somewhere other than north Alabama (meaning a line just below Cullman County and northward).

The population around Auburn will certainly shrink that district, and so will Tuscaloosa. And Baldwin will make that district smaller, but at the very least Mobile and Baldwin Counties should be in the same district. I think what it amounts to is that there will be some very large in area rural districts, with smaller more urban/suburban districts, assuming they do not split cities just for the heck of it. I suppse it's possible, and maybe logically, to split off the western side of Jefferson and pair it with Tuscaloosa, then take the remainder of Jefferson and pair it with all of Shelby. That actually makes sense culturally, since it would have the more affluent parts of Jefferson along with virtually all of Shelby being affluent.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by jasonhsv

Has Marshall county ever been in the Congressional district with Madison county?

Don't know, but now might be a good time to do it. I'm fairly certain it was part of the Huntsville Metro many years ago, and Limestone was not. I could easily be misremembering though.