January 25, 2011
The New York Times told readers that: “The median Democratic Congressional district now has a population 11 times as large as the median Republican Congressional district, according to an analysis by Transportation Weekly, a trade publication that focuses on federal transportation spending.”
This is not right. Congressional districts are required to have roughly the same population under the constitution. There cannot be perfect equality since districts cannot cross state lines but the most populous district does not have even twice the population of the least populated district. The idea that the median Democratic district has 11 times the population of the median Republican district is absurd on its face.
[Addendum: the NYT corrected this article — ratio referred to population densities, not population.
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