The headlines out of the Census data release include SW Missouri is growing, St. Louis isn’t growing and Kansas City gets to be the largest city in Missouri. But what about the current State House and Senate districts (used for the 2002 through 2010 elections and due to be modified for 2012 through 2020)?
The ideal population for a Missouri Senate district in the next redistricting is around 176145.
Three districts are over 200,000 people: SD2 (St. Charles/Lincoln), SD20 (Counties surrounding Springfield, but not Springfield), and SD8 (Blue Springs/Lee’s Summit).
Three districts are under 150,000 people: SD14 (North St. Louis County), SD9 (Kansas City) and SD4 (St. Louis City).
For those wondering, these districts have around 186,000 people or more right now: SD17 (Clay County), SD29 (Stone, Taney, Lawrence, Ozark, McDonald, Barry Counties), SD31 (Johnson, Cass, Bates, Vernon Counties), SD26 (Franklin, Warren, West County STL), SD16 (Rolla, Pulaski County, Dent County, Gasconade County, assorted other places), and SD19 (Boone and Randolph Counties)
These districts have 166000 or fewer people: SD21 (Lafayette, Saline, Ray, Carroll, Cooper, etc), SD7 (STL County, in-between West and North County), SD10 (Kansas City, shaped like an overhead projector), SD18 (Northeast Missouri), SD13 (North County STL), and SD5 (STL City).
State Senate redistricting splits very few counties (Jefferson, Greene, Clay, STL County, STL City, and Jackson County). Soon people will mess around with the countyswapping needed to get a map that doesn’t violate one-man one vote.
Amongst districts entirely in one county, SD22 (McKenna, termed out in 2014) is almost exactly fine as it is. SD3 (Engler, termed out) needs a few thousand more people. SD33 (Purgason, termed out) needs to shed some population, which would go to SD3 or SD25 (Mayer, termed out). SD27 (Crowell, termed out) also needs some more people. Sensing a trend in the area’s legislative team?
Jackson County is 30,000 below the ideal population to support four state senate districts, so one of the four districts should go into another county. In an ideal world.
As for the State House.. the ideal district will have 36742 people in it. The districts we have in place vary from 72365 people (HD13) to 27412 (HD61). The Math experts reading this can deduce that HD13 could almost be split in 2 and be legal (as of now, it’d need to be split in two with some parts taken from other populated St. Charles County districts).
The House districts with under 30000 people are HD43 (KCMO), HD64 (STL), HD41 (KCMO), HD60 (STL), HD57 (STL), and HD61 (STL). The least populated district not in Jackson County or the city of St. Louis is HD78 (30572 people) in Northwest STL County. HD162 (New Madrid) has 31602 people.
Eight House districts have between 45769 and 58725 people. The biggest of these is HD35 in Clay County. HD19 in Calloway County has almost 50,000 people. HD134 in Greene County has 48531. HD11 (Lincoln County) has over 48,000 as well. HD142 (Christian/Taney Counties) has 47928 people. HD24 (Boone County, Chris Kelly) has 46896 people. HD141 (Christian, Lawrence and Stone Counties) has 46328 people and HD38 (Clay County) had 45769.
61 of 163 districts are above the ideal total of 36742. Keep in mind that these districts were all around 34K when drawn after 2000. Things change. So essentially there’s going to be some creative line drawing to get the suburbs and SW MO under 37K while getting the urban districts up to the totals needed.
The number of districts in KC and STL is probably gonna go down as well. Jackson County can fit around 18 districts into the county, down from the 19 Jackson County districts after 2000. STL City can fit 8 districts completely in the city limits with room to make up the majority of a district with STL County. Right now STL City has 8 whole districts, 3/4ths of a district, and half of a 10th district.
For the sake of comparison, St. Charles County can now fit 9 whole districts with the majority of a 10th, up from having 8 entire districts.
Feel free to dig around the American Factfinder website to figure out more about the results of the 2010 Census.