The Constitution of the United States calls for the counting of citizens every 10 years to determine among other things, the number of representatives that each state will have in congress.  It is also used to determine the number of electoral votes that each state gets in the presidential elections.

However, in the 2010 census, the plan is to count all persons regardless of their citizenship.  In an editorial in the WSJ today by John S. Baker and Elliot Stonecipher, the details of how this impacts our government are detailed.

For example, by adding in the illegal population, California will get 57 house seats rather than the 48 seats that it should get based upon population estimates.  Similarly, Texas will get 38 when it should have roughly 34.  What this means is that states the have higher populations of illegals will get more votes in congress than states that have less.  It also means that those states will have a greater say in who is the President in the 2012 election.

… the 2010 census short form does not ask about citizenship because “Congress has not asked us to do that.”

States that are expected to win extra seats by counting illegals include Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Texas.  States that are expected to lose seats due to population loss include Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Other states that are likely (though not certain) to lose a seat are Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and Ohio could lose a second seat.

Regardless of where you fall in the illegal immigration debate, people from those states that are not gaining power in congress should object to those states gaining power through harboring illegal immigrants and counting them as citizens.