5 trends shaping redistricting: new dynamics are transforming the once-a-decade exercise of drawing political boundaries.

• Author: Cullen, Morgan
• Position: REDISTRICTING

In just a few weeks, candidates across the country will be elected to newly redrawn state legislative and congressional districts. Over the past two years, state legislatures have painstakingly redrawn district boundaries to reflect the population shifts identified in the 2010 Census.

It's not an easy task, but extremely important. How lines are drawn shape a state's partisan landscape for years. If maps are drawn improperly, the process can mire a state in legal challenges, fuel public cynicism toward government and add to partisan acrimony.

Many traditional geographic, legal and political constraints govern how states go about redrawing districts. But there are some new factors transforming the process. Here are five that had a significant impact on the latest redistricting cycle.

1 SHIFTING SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST

What the decennial Census discovers about population changes is the basis for how maps are redrawn. It came as no surprise to most Americans when the 2010 Census revealed the U.S. population continues to migrate south and west. Between 2000 and 2010 the nation's population as a whole grew at a slower rate than in previous decades, averaging just 9.7 percent. But not everywhere. Nevada's population grew a whopping 35.2 percent in those 10 years. And Texas gained 4.3 million people, more than the total population of half the states.

This demographic shift had a huge impact on congressional reapportionment: Southern and Western states picked up 10 new congressional seats from states in the Northeast and Midwest.

Another notable trend from the last Census was the large growth in minority populations. Every major ethnic or racial minority group gained in proportion to the total U.S. population, and as a whole grew 29 percent. The Hispanic population grew four times faster (43 percent) than the population as a whole, mostly in the South and West, and now comprises 16 percent of the total population. Nearly half of the population in the West (47 percent) is now from a minority group.

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The Census also revealed that Texas now has a "majority-minority" population, and joins California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., in having non-Hispanic whites make up less than 50 percent of all residents, according to the Census Bureau.

This shift had a big effect on how congressional and state legislative maps were drawn in many states. Several states added new majority-minority statehouse and congressional districts to ensure fair representation of minority groups.

For example, with more than 80 percent of the population growth in Texas attributed to Latinos, a court-drawn interim plan added 13 new majority-minority districts to the House, for a total of 64 out of 150 seats. It also added two new majority-minority congressional districts--one Latino and the other a combined Latino/African-American.

"Over my 20 years plus in the Legislature, I have seen the Hispanic population in Texas surge at a rapid pace," says Senator Leticia Van De Putte (D) of San Antonio. "It is time for our representatives in state government to truly reflect the makeup of our state."

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That's often easier said than done. The Texas Legislature finished drawing new congressional and state legislative lines in early 2011. But this August, a U.S. District Court found that both...