Reapportionment Then and Now

WHEN THE U.S. Census Bureau released congressional reapportionment numbers based on the 201U Census in December, the results were more or less as expected. Texas and Florida were the big gainers, along with a smattering of other rapidly growing states, primarily in the Sunbelt, while New York and Ohio were the big losers, along with a swath of slower growing states, primarily in the Northeast and Midwest.

Representatives of states destined to lose congressional seats generally took the results as a matter of course, though one exception was Louisiana Senator David Vitter, who issued a statement lamenting that his state would lose a seat "while states that welcome illegal …