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October 4,
2005
Population
Loss Altering Louisiana Political Landscape
By JEREMY
ALFORD
BATON ROUGE, La., and Oct. 3 -
The two recent gulf hurricanes may result in a significant loss of population
for Louisiana,
and state officials are now virtually certain that Louisiana will lose a
Congressional seat - along with federal financing and national influence -
after the 2010 census.
Having dislodged more than a million people in southern Louisiana alone, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita are also likely to alter the state's political landscape, demographers and political experts say, reducing the domination of New Orleans over the State Legislature and increasing the influence of suburban and rural areas.
With a low-wage economy and
consistently poor educational performance, Louisiana was losing population even
before the hurricanes. The state had a net loss of more than 75,000 people from
1995 to 2000, according to census figures. But the physical and psychological
damage inflicted by the hurricanes could push tens of thousands, and possibly
hundreds of thousands, of people out of the state for good, state officials
say, comparable only to the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression and possibly
the 1927 floods.
"I'm not sure if history is
going to help us with this because we've never had anything like it," said
Karen Paterson, the state demographer. "But we have not shown a positive
net migration in many years. I would expect that we would experience a
significant loss of population statewide."
With evacuees now making
decisions on whether to plant roots elsewhere, and the geographical future of
New Orleans in question, it is impossible to say with any precision how many
people will be in Louisiana at the end of the decade. A dependable number will
have to wait until the 2010 census.
The numbers available now,
however, are staggering. About 1.5 million people were initially evacuated from
the damaged regions, roughly 1 million have applied for hurricane-related federal
aid, 30,000 are in out-of-state shelters, 46,400 are in in-state shelters and
932 people have perished in the storms. Officials are unsure how many people
are staying in hotels or with family and friends.
Many here were already expecting
Louisiana to lose one of its seven Congressional seats because of existing
out-migration and high growth rates in other states, but the impact of the
hurricanes has solidified fears. Glenn Koepp, secretary of the Louisiana State
Senate and one of the main officials in the state's redistricting office, said
Louisiana had fallen so far behind other states that even if it managed to
increase by 7,000 people in the next five years, it would still lose a
Congressional seat.
Elliott Stonecipher, a political
analyst and demographer based in Shreveport, said the state faced a long-term
reduction in federal aid as its population diminishes.
"The result is
direct," said Mr. Stonecipher, who was formerly an assistant
superintendent with the state Department of Education. "With the loss of
population there will be a matching loss of revenue.
You pick it. Look at education,
whether it be Title IX or special education. This will be devastating."
Many politicians are also keeping a close eye on population movement within the
state.
Within 48 hours after Hurricane
Katrina made landfall, Baton Rouge became Louisiana's largest city, doubling to
about 800,000 residents. Local officials are now trying to get a population
survey up and running to seek federal aid.
Mr. Koepp said this population shift could actually be the early stages
of the deterioration of New Orleans' long-term hold over the State Legislature.
"If this holds true, there will be a significant political change,"
he said.
There are now 21 seats in the
House and Senate that encompass or touch on Orleans Parish, of 144 total seats
statewide. But if the population fails to return to the parish in coming years,
New Orleans may be confined to just a few seats in each chamber through
redistricting, Mr. Koepp added. That could change the state's racial and
partisan balance.
If evacuees from the Ninth Ward
in New Orleans - a reliable bloc of 30,000 black voters that is traditionally
easy to mobilize - choose suburban or rural areas over their urban roots in
coming years, it could be a political blow to Democrats, said Roy Fletcher, a
political consultant from Shreveport who helped elect former Gov. Mike Foster,
a Republican.
"It would give a whole lot
of a stronger foothold to Republicans in the Legislature and statewide,"
Mr. Fletcher said. "Louisiana has always been a swing state, a purple
state that's both blue and red. You take the Ninth Ward out of that equation
and you get a real shot of Republicans winning statewide office. "Barry
Erwin, president of a Council for a Better Louisiana, a nonpartisan nonprofit
group that monitors the activities of state government, said such a change
could forever alter the political landscape.
"These things are symbolic
of a divide that we've always had," he said. "There's an us versus
them thing. In New Orleans, it's like us, and then there's the rest of the
state. Around the rest of the state, it's like us, and then there's New
Orleans. This could change all of that."