Redistricting Talk Starts Early

The next U.S. Census won't be taken until 2010, and the results won't likely be available for a year after that. But speculation has already started about whether or how West Virginia might use the latest population numbers to redraw its three congressional districts.

As it did in 2000, West Virginia appears likely to avoid the loss of a U.S. House seat, unlike several other states (and unlike West Virginia after the 1990 count).

Both The Charleston Gazette and the Charleston Daily Mail focus on the future of the home turf of Republican U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, the 18-county 2nd Congressional District that runs from the Kanawha Valley to the Eastern Panhandle.