Alabama could lose one congressional seat after the 2020 Census is completed. Could it lose two?

That’s the message being delivered by state officials and those rallying for a boost in Census participation. In recent appearances in Huntsville and Mobile, state officials said that a sluggish participation rate could cause Alabama’s U.S. House representation to fall from seven to five seats.

Gov. Kay Ivey’s office is relaying a similar message that two House seats are at risk if the state’s Census participation levels are similar to 2000, when just 68% of residents filled out Census forms. In 2010, state’s participation rate climbed but only slightly, registering 72%.

“The governor wants to motivate and encourage people in every corner of the state to complete their Census in 2020,” said Gina Maiola, spokeswoman for Ivey. “It is critical not only to keeping our voice in Washington, but also to important federal dollars that come to Alabama.”

‘Catastrophic events’

Census experts, however, say it would take a historic undercount of Alabama residents in order for the state to lose two seats. At least one longtime Census analyst believes that Alabama should be sending a different message: That Alabama can preserve all seven seats if participation rates rise.

As things stand now, Alabama seems likely to lose one of its congressional seats for the first time since 1970, thanks largely to a sluggish population growth since 2010 compared to other states in the Southeast and Southwest.

Kimball Brace, who has been doing Census apportionment projections since the 1980s, said that Alabama is in range of saving all seven seats – so long as it delivers a strong Census headcount in 2020.

According to Brace’s projections based on 2018 Census Bureau population estimates, Alabama needs to drive up its count by 40,764 people – slightly more than the population of the city of Florence – to maintain seven seats.

To lose two seats, the state headcount would have to go drastically in the other direction, missing 742,368 people, according to the analysis by Brace’s Election Data Services.

Such a scenario is unlikely, though alarming swerves in Census counts have occurred before, Brace said. In the mid-2000s, Brace said Louisiana was projected to gain congressional representation before Hurricane Katrina struck. Due to an approximately 30% population loss in New Orleans, the state ended up losing one congressional seat when the 2010 Census was done.

“It would take something like that for you to lose a second seat,” Brace said. “But I don’t see that happening from a bad counting process during the Census.”

Other Census experts agree.

“For the state to lose two seats, there would have to be catastrophic events leading to a dramatic downturn in population between now and April 2020 and the Census enumeration,” said Gerald Webster, a professor of political geography at the University of Wyoming and a former geography professor at the University of Alabama.

‘Unprecedented relief’

Alabama’s Census maneuvers are also taking place in the federal courtroom. The state remains sued last year to try to block the tallying of undocumented immigrants for the purposes of determining congressional representation.

Alabama’s legal team, led by Attorney General Steve Marshall, plans to have an expert show in federal court how “illegal counts in their respective states” will lead to Alabama losing out on a congressional seat. Texas, for example, has among the highest concentration of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and projections show the state gaining three congressional districts after 2020.

The lawsuit, also joined by U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, is pending in the U.S. District Court of Northern Alabama. The case challenges the 14th Amendment’s “Residence Rule,” which gives the Census Bureau authority to count undocumented immigrants when determining how many U.S. House seats that each state gets.

Sixteen states, nine cities and counties and the U.S. Conference of Mayors all filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit last month and are arguing that a historic change in counting undocumented residents would “reduce their representation in Congress.” Among the intervening cities were New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Providence.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, in a brief filed on Aug. 12, called the Alabama lawsuit an “extraordinary and unprecedented relief” that “for the first time in history” calls for undocumented immigrants to be excluded from the decennial Census.

James also cited remarks that were made by U.S Attorney General William Barr last month that indicated the federal government was studying “whether illegal aliens can be included for apportionment purposes.”

Marshall, according to court files, said that the interests of potential intervenors are already adequately represented by various parties in the suit.

“Counting large illegal alien populations in the Census unfairly takes voting power away from American citizens based on the presence of non-citizens with no legal ties to our country,” said Mike Lewis, spokesman for Marshall. “This result cannot be reconciled with the Fourteenth Amendment’s principle of equal representation nor with the Apportionment Clause crafted by the Framers.”

Marshall’s office declined to comment on the concerns over the potential of Alabama losing two congressional seats.

‘Starting early’

Nonetheless, efforts to ramp up Census activity are under way ahead of the Census forms being mailed out in March 2020. On the past Tuesday, Mobile city leaders were briefed about the importance of the upcoming count and what’s at stake.

Anita Archie, deputy director with the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, said that aside from congressional representation, federal resources also hang in the balance, on everything from Housing and Urban Development grants to transportation and health care dollars.

She said that efforts will get into motion to encourage participation by approximately 740,000 Alabamians living in so-called “hard-to-count Census tracts.” For instance, 2010 Census participation rates were below 50% in some of the more rural counties in Alabama such as Wilcox (42%), Perry (41%), Greene (42%) and Coosa (47%), according to Census data.

Two workshops focusing on Census outreach are being planned for Sept. 14 at the Alabama Center for Commerce in Montgomery, and all organizations – cities, counties, and non-profit groups collaborating the hard-to-county Census areas – have been invited. A 10 a.m. workshop is full, but a 1:30 p.m. meeting is still open.

“I am glad to see we are starting early,” said Mobile City Council Vice President Levon Manzie. “I always felt that our region and our city has been undercounted. We are right at the cusp of that next level of where we want to be. It’s important that all people count.”

Kristina Scott, executive director of the non-profit group Alabama Possible, said that large-population counties in Alabama – Mobile, Jefferson and Madison – have pockets of areas they consider difficult in reaching.

“Alabamians do not have a history of completing the Census at the same rate as other states,” she said. “We have a great mistrust in government. People mistrust giving their information to the federal government even though your Census information is secured and protected by law. But again, it’s built into our DNA … that distrust in government.”

U.S. Census data of county population change reveals a familiar map across the Southeast.

‘Telling story’

Scott is among those in Alabama warning about the potential loss of two congressional seats. She said the loss of two congressional seats in the states of Ohio and New York in 2010 should serve as a warning for Alabama.

“They were both projected to lose one seat, but lost two due to low participation rates,” Scott said.

Brace said both New York and Ohio were close to the cusp of maintaining their extra congressional seat in 2010. But he said the recent projections only show New York losing two congressional seats after the 2020 count, and Alabama being nowhere close to losing dropping from seven to five congressional districts.

“It’s a scare (tactic),” said Brace. “You’re sitting right there relatively on the edge of losing that one seat or keeping that seat. I don’t know if they have to really scare for a second seat when the closeness of only being 40,000 people away (from keeping the seventh congressional seat) is a more telling story.”

Webster, at the University of Wyoming, said the Census activity is crucial for Alabama as it faces off with a razor-thin margin between keeping or losing a congressional seat.

“For example, even some minor out-migration or no in-migration could move the state further down the list and beyond the allocation of the 435th seat,” said Webster. Election Data Services is expected to release its latest projections in December.

“This also means the state should actively promote filling out and returning the Census forms to insure there is an accurate count,” said Webster. “All things being equal, Alabama’s best chance to retain its seventh seat in the House is a complete accurate enumeration.”

Scott and Brace do agree that the fate of a congressional seat depends on which states are outperforming others in Census participation.

“I feel like it’s like baseball,” Scott said. “You team has to win but then what happens with the other teams also matter in the rankings within your division. If the other state participates with higher rates, and we don’t participate, then the math becomes that we lose two seats.”