Mark Barrett

mbarrett@citizen-times.com

Population trends are likely to reduce Western North Carolina's influence in Raleigh and possibly in Washington when political districts are redrawn in 2021, a recent analysis suggests.

The mountains' population grew from 2010-14, but not as quickly as the state as whole, according to figures compiled by Rebecca Tippett, director of Carolina demography at UNC Chapel Hill's Carolina Population Center. If current trends continue, the fast-growing Charlotte and Raleigh areas will get a larger share of state senators and representatives when the General Assembly creates new districts in five years and the rest of the state will get less.

Legislative districts must be no more than 5 percent larger or smaller than the ideal size of districts, which is computed by dividing the state's population by 50 for state Senate seats and 120 for House seats. As the state's population grows, that ideal figure rises too.

Three WNC districts would be more than 5 percent below ideal if redistricting were to happen today, Tippett's figures indicate: The 47th Senate District, which comprises Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford and Yancey counties; the 118th House District, which is Yancey and Madison counties and most of Haywood; and the 119th House, which is Jackson, Swain and part of Haywood.

That means those districts would have to become larger geographically to take in enough residents to meet the 5 percent rule. Enlarging them, combined with slow growth in other rural WNC counties, could ultimately reduce the number of legislators the region is entitled to send to Raleigh.

Buncombe County legislative districts are within the limits so far, so the number of House and Senate members the county elects probably will not change much, if at all.

The impact at the congressional level is more complicated. Only one other U.S. House district in the state grew more slowly than the 10th U.S. House District represented by Patrick McHenry and the 11th, represented by Mark Meadows.

That will probably mean those districts will have to expand in size to meet population requirements, too. However, current growth trends suggest the state will get a 14th member of the U.S. House of Representatives when its seats are reapportioned among the states after the next census, Tippett wrote recently.

We don't know yet precisely what that will mean for how many people must live in each district. If current trends continue, the ideal population of a U.S. House district would be modestly larger than it was when current districts were drawn in 2011, meaning adjustments in the two districts that cover WNC would be modest as well.

Population changes will have impacts on the partisan balance of power in Raleigh and WNC and could play a role in the push for changing the way district lines are drawn to make the process less partisan. At first glance, it looks like areas of the state that vote Democratic may be growing faster than those that vote Republican, meaning redistricting could erode GOP power. The Charlotte Observer recently quoted advocates of redistricting reform as saying the uncertainty caused by changing population could encourage some Republican legislators to support redistricting reform.

It would require a close look at each of the 170 legislative districts to say what population trends will mean for the two main political parties. Both voting and population patterns could change between now and 2021 and it is worth remembering that Tippett's analysis is based on estimates, not a detailed census. What one can say is odds are the General Assembly of the next decade will contain more urban and suburban legislators and fewer rural ones.