TIME FOR REDISTRICTING, REAPPORTIONMENT

The calendar has turned over to that point, every 10 years, when the decennial census is performed, from which lots of consequences flow. The U.S. Bureau of the Census announced official numbers last week.

America's population soared past 281 million. We're told that the following fast-growing Sunbelt states will each get two new seats in the U.S. House: Arizona, Texas, Florida and Georgia.

North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada and California also grew fast enough to pick up one seat each. Continuing a trend that has been going on for decades, the once-dominant states of the North and Northeast will lose seats. New York and Pennsylvania lost two seats each. Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Connecticut, Indiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Wisconsin each lost one.

When plotted on a map, the picture is stark: The fast-growing states form an arc, from Washington and California, down through Arizona and Nevada across the South from Texas to Florida and Georgia to the Carolinas.

Missouri grew faster than in any other decade of the 20th century, with its population growing by 478,000, or 9 percent, to 5,595,211 people. Happily, this increase is enough to stave off the loss of a House seat, as happened 20 years ago, when our state went from 10 House members to nine. Census officials say Missouri sustained this growth because it has remained an attractive potential home, especially to Hispanic immigrants seeking work and senior citizens looking to retire in the Ozarks.

Among the most important consequences to flow from the census is redistricting, both of congressional and state legislative seats. The law mandates a one-man-one-vote rule of equal representation for House seats and state senators and representatives. This is always a messy business in any state legislature, better read about than observed up close. This daunting task is hugely aided and abetted now by dazzling, state-of-the-art computer software that can plot census tracts and neighborhoods down to this or that side of a street.

In Missouri, we know that the 8th Congressional District saw an increase of just under 1,000 people and will likely see little change, unless it is to pick up Republican counties in Southwest Missouri. The 7th District in that part of the state must shed 55,000 people. The 4th District, mostly in the City of St. Louis, lost a stunning 100,000 people. The 9th District in Northeast Missouri must lose 65,000 people, entirely from fast-growing St. Charles County.

Redistricting presents a major challenge for our political class over the next two years.