(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Redistricting commission finalizes new House, Senate districts [1] ['Sam Wilson Sam.Wilson Lee.Net', 'Sam Wilson', 'Thom Bridge', 'Independent Record'] Date: 2023-02 Montana’s redistricting commission on Saturday voted 3-2 to finalize new House and Senate maps that will help guide the partisan balance of the state Legislature for the next decade. As has happened on previous deadlocks over major votes, nonpartisan chair Maylinn Smith cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the map. The independent commission also includes two Democrats and two Republicans. The House map is largely derived from one offered by Democrats toward the end of a series of compromises last year, when Smith chose it over the GOP proposal. Since then, Democrats have largely supported it, while Smith has sided with Republicans on a number of area-specific changes in the months since. The redrawing process happens every 10 years based on new population estimates from the census. But after a daylong work session, in which Smith voted with Republicans on a major change to a district north of Missoula, Democrats on the commission dropped their support. They objected to a Missoula-area change, which would not survive the day. It would have changed a reliably Democratic district to one leaning Republican. Democratic Commissioner Kendra Miller has argued the maps should elect Republicans and Democrats roughly equal to their share of the statewide vote. An averaging of past statewide races used in the commission’s competitiveness metric show a roughly 57% to 43% statewide split among Montana voters, favoring Republicans. The proposed House map would, under perfectly average electoral conditions, send 60 Republicans and 40 Democrats to the state House. The Senate map is based on pairing up adjacent House districts, with similar proportionality. Using data to show how redrawing the districts will affect the Legislature's partisan balance is a matter of transparency, Miller argued. “We’re drawing political districts, they have political impacts,” she said. “… It is disingenuous to pretend that moving lines doesn't have political consequences. It does.” Republicans have remained critical of the map, arguing it goes too far toward parity, and compromises too much on compactness, a criterion the commission is constitutionally required to follow. “A map will generally and naturally lead to an increase in districts for a majority party,” Republican Commissioner Dan Stusek said, arguing for a process that omits political data from the district-drawing process. “That happens for Democrats in California, it happens for Republicans in Republican states.” So with neither Republican nor Democratic support for the amended map, Smith was momentarily stuck with maps that couldn’t advance from the commission. Saturday was to be the group’s final meeting before filing them with the Secretary of State. “I would like to have a map that we can put forward today,” Smith said. “I don’t want to draw this out any more than we have to.” With the commission’s Republicans unwilling to support a map without further changes, Smith ultimately sided with the Democrats’ pitch to unwind the change north of Missoula back to reliably blue, largely reverting the House map back to its previous form. Asked afterward if the GOP missed a chance to at least eke a small win out of the day’s work, Republican Commissioner Dan Stusek said that would have created the “presumption” that they approved of the map, which their party has consistently criticized. “We certainly had to take a principled stance on behalf of who we represent,” he said. The commission did find bipartisan agreement on several changes recommended by the Legislature. They include tweaking the district lines in Big Horn and Lake counties, along with several other small edits that found bipartisan agreement from lawmakers. On a 4-1 vote, they also shifted a line along the shore of Flathead Lake. Smith resisted most of the last-minute attempts from Republicans to redraw politically controversial district lines, including ones in Flathead, Gallatin, and Lewis and Clark counties. Miller repeatedly referred to those as “Republican wish list” items that had been previously debated by the commission. On a 3-2 vote, Smith sided with Democrats to redraw a pair of rural districts in Eastern Montana to make them more compact. Previously, one of the districts had stretched from Lewistown to Miles City. If all goes as planned, the new House and Senate maps will be filed with the Secretary of State in the coming days, making official new legislative districts that go into effect starting with the 2024 elections. But the Montana GOP has strongly indicated it may sue over the maps, a legal action not without precedent. Following the work of redistricting commission that met after the 2000 Census, the Secretary of State at the time refused to accept the new legislative maps, setting up an extended battle in the courts. [END] --- [1] Url: https://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/redistricting-commission-finalizes-new-house-senate-districts/article_89d1d7c9-e7af-5fee-a5e7-640ff57b1fa3.html Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/