By one measure, O.C. reddest of red (Orange County California has Bush's biggest margin of victory)

The claim that Orange County is the country's most GOP county lost a bit of luster a few years ago when slipping Republican registration here meant it didn't even have the highest percentage of GOP voters in the state, let alone nationwide.

But the claim is back, and not because it has regained its ranking in terms of percentage of registration.

Rather, the county brought home November's largest margin of victory for George W. Bush. Of the nation's 3,066 counties, Orange County had the incumbent beating John Kerry by 222,593 votes. Second was Maricopa County, Ariz., with a 174,606-vote margin.

Large urban counties tend to vote Democrat, and numerous other counties found Bush winning by a higher percentage than the 60 percent here - Collin County, Texas, for instance, had Bush with 71 percent of the vote. And of course, Orange County's margin of victory was ultimately meaningless to Bush's win, since the state went to Kerry.

But it is a strong indication of how Democrat voters are outnumbered by Republican voters - enough to give Republicans here bragging rights once again.

"This is why we claim we're the most Republican county in the nation," said Scott Baugh, chairman of the county party.

The Constitution requires an actual enumeration (the Census) of the inhabitants of each state, and those numbers are used to apportion representatives among the states and to draw congressional districts within each state. Excluded from the Census count are people who are not permanent residents of the state on Census Day, such as people who are travelling on that day or tourists from other countries. I believe that Congress should pass a law so that in the 2010 Census persons who are not U.S. citizens or legal non-citizen residents (legal residents, even if they are not citizens, are clearly inhabitants of their home states) are not counted for purposes of the apportionment of representatives, although they can be counted for other purposes, such as hospital funding, etc.).

By excluding illegal aliens from the count, it would eliminate the "rotten borough" districts in which only 100,000 voters, 400,000 legal residents and 250,000 citizens have the same representation as a next-door district with 300,000 voters, 650,000 legal residents and 600,000 citizens. It would result in states like California losing like 3 electoral votes, Texas losing like 2, Florida probably losing 1, and perhaps one or two other states losing EVs as well. And within those states, it would eliminate several Democrat congressional districts, since areas with a lot of illegal aliens would have fewer congressional districts than they do today (for example, there would surely be one fewer CD in South Texas and probably one fewer CD in Houston, and it would be Democrat districts that would have to go).

I think Congress should get cracking on this issue right away, since once President Bush's temporary-guest-worker program (which I conditionally support so long as it is clear that temporary guest workers won't be bringing in their families or qualify for eventual citizenship) is adopted, there will be an even greater increase in the number of non-residents aliens in the U.S., and the presence of such temporary workers should not affect the right to one-man, one-vote among the electorate. Maybe it can be part of the negotiation for the approval of the guset-worker program.

I agree 100%. This is vitally important to turn the tide back, so the Democrats are not REWARDED FOR SUPPORTING ILLEGAL IMMIUGRATION.

"It is *also* the case then, that with a good gerry mander, that Sanchez district could go away."

The problem is that (i) the GOP does not control redistricting in CA, and probably will not do so again for the foreseeable future, and (ii) the Voting Rights Act requires that CA have a certain number of Hispanic-minority districts, and any reduction in the number of such districts would be seen as a violation of the Act. But if the GOP controlled redistricting, I think that we could draw two GOP-leaning Hispanic-majority districts in the OC, although neither could be as heavily Hispanic as Sanchez's CD. That's under the current rules, of course; if illegal aliens were not counted as inhabitants for apportionment purposes, there would probably not be any Hispanic-majority CDs in the OC and the most Hispanic district in the county would lean Republican.

There are hundreds, and maybe over one thousand, rural counties in the USA where Bush won a greater percentage than in Orange County.

Exactly. Great news that Bush won OC by lots of votes, but it doesn't stack up percentage wise with others, as you say. Especially in a state that supported Kerry.

I don't have the numbers at the tip of my fingers but, for example, Forsyth County in north Atlanta Metro voted approx 75%-80% for Bush, with several other counties over 70%. Cobb County, where I live, voted 68% for Bush.

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