In Congress, each state will have a number of representatives based upon that state’s population.
Suppose during the next census, a state is found to have a significant enough number of people who “left”…died, moved to another state, etc…significant enough to require a reduction of that state’s representatives in Congress.
Does somebody approach one or more of these Distinguished Gentlemen and say, “You’re Fired”?
Yes, and that somebody is the people of the state. All House members are up for election every cycle. If there are fewer seats now than there were, then at least one of them won’t win re-election. Assuming that every one of them wants to keep their job, they’ll all find whatever district is closest to their old one and run in that, and you will have some races between multiple incumbents.
No one is directly fired, as all sitting representatives serve out the remainder of their terms. The downsizing doesn’t take place until the next election, in which there are now, after reapportionment, fewer districts in the state.
This happens nearly every census cycle, it’s a pretty common occurrence. It usually occurs because states populations grow at different rates although some states actually do have population decline. Since the number of reps is capped at 435, when one state gets a new member, some other state has to lose one.
Right, and it’s not as if it’s just “OK we eliminate the 4th District, sorry about that, Fred”. You have to split the former 4th between others and draw the new districts in such a way that they comply with the similar-population rule, so that in turn will shift *their *borders, potentially altering who may run where.
BTW even in the states that gets increased representation, again since the districts are drawn based on distribution of population, some incumbents will still get their district boundaries altered to the point they end up with a changed competition scenario in the next election.
Redistricting has no effect on who may run for a redrawn district. You only have to live somewhere in the state, not the district.
However, living outside the district may impact a person’s electability. Hence I’ve seen around here several Reps. whose “home” is their local HQ in a strip mall.
And while the districts can in principle be completely different, there’s usually enough resemblance that you can say things like “The third district shrunk slightly”, or “the 4th and 7th districts are combined”.