Printer-friendly versionSend to friend

If either Chris Lee or Alice Kryzan are looking for a long career in the House of Representatives, they might be sorely disappointed, according to Buffalo Business First.

In four years, the Legislature will redraw legislative boundaries, and because of an ongoing population decline in Western New York, the state is likely to lose two seats.

“Either one of them would be at the mercy of Albany,” says Kevin Hardwick, a Canisius College political science professor. “But then, in a way that’s true for every congressman involved. Reapportionment is the only time in 10 years that a congressman ever sucks up to a state legislator. They hold all the cards.”

...

“The nation has had a long westward and southward expansion, so House seats are going that way, too,” says Mark Mather, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based research group. “New York’s loss is Arizona’s and Nevada’s and Florida’s gain. I don’t know when it’s going to end.”

Certainly not soon. New York is likely to lose two more congressional seats after the 2010 census, according to a new Business First analysis of U.S. Census Bureau projections.

The prime target for those cuts will be the eight counties of Western New York, which lost 56,000 residents between 2000 and 2007, based on federal estimates. The rest of Upstate added 10,000 people during the same span, and Downstate added 347,000.

The article says the winner of the NY-26 race will be vulnerable to losing the seat because both candidates will have little seniority within the delegation and fewer friends in Albany.

While this could be bad news for Lee or Kryzan, it's certainly bad news for WNY.