http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/w...46381.html

This article says Texas will be the big winner in the House with four new seats. A number of southern states will get 1 new seat. The usual suspects (Ohio, upper midwest and northeast) states will lose either 1 or 2 seats. In general, it's good news for the red states and not as good for the blue states.

I have a question about this and need someone to refresh my memory on it. If Texas gets four new seats, how do they figure out where to put the new districts? Is it strictly done by population totals or does the current Governor and state legislature just get to pick and choose the new spots? It seems like it's a combination of the two somehow??

The current legislature and governor do the redistricting, subject to rules regarding population and makeup of individual districts, and possible review by the courts. I'm guessing this legislature and governor will probably create three new republican-leaning districts and one predominantly minority (and thus at least in theory democrat-leaning) district.

This is why the state election results last month were so significant. Republicans now control enough state legislatures that they can probably redistrict themselves to control of the US house for the next ten years.

Just be prepared for all the gerrymandering claims. . .

This census makes Obama's route to a 2nd term more difficult. I remember when Obama took office he vowed to run the Census out of the Whitehouse.