By all accounts, it is a tall order: A voter mandate, new census numbers, cutting the county’s election districts by 50 and eliminating four of the county’s 19 legislative seats.
“Put all those things into a hat and mix them up and I think it would become very difficult to come through with the 15 districts as evenly as we did,” said Jerry Marinich, chair of the county’s legislature.
After weeks of meetings, the county’s ad hoc redistricting committee has come up with this new map, featuring newly drawn legislative districts. Instead of 19, 15, which will mean about 3,000 more constituents per legislator.
“The lines are straight you don’t see things wiggling all over the map. They’re concise. They’re within the towns as much as we could,” Marinich said.
But Marinich’s party is in the majority.
“The system is dominated by the majority,” said democratic legislator Daniel D. Reynolds.
Reynolds was part of the ad hoc committee.
“You have less of a voice when you’re in the minority, there’s no doubt about that,” he said.
Looking ahead to 2012, what voters can expect is for the two republican districts that combine, there will be a republican primary. For the two democratic districts that combine, there will be a democratic primary and for republican and democratic districts that merge together, there will be a runoff election.
Already there are indications that it could be a tough election fight.
“The city is typically democratic, we’re losing a seat in the city,” Reynolds said. “Union is typically democrat. That those districts have expanded to include republican territories, more rural communities.”
“When you go from 19 to 15, they’re going to be at least four people that aren’t going to happy.”
The county will accept public comments on the proposed map until the 10th and the full legislature will vote on the proposal May 19th.
For a better look at the map, head to www.bcgis.com.
