February 1, 2022 |
The Corporations Committee last week approved a final redistricting plan that expands the legislature. The 62-31 plan, which was unveiled for the first time Thursday, adds two House seats and one in the Senate.
Officially known officially as Statewide Compilation Plan 6, it will be introduced as the committee’s bill during the upcoming legislative session. The committee also passed a backup plan in case Plan 6 fails. The backup plan keeps the current 60-30 configuration of the House and Senate intact.
During discussion, the so-called I-80 compromise was abandoned. It would have kept House District 47 and Senate District 11 intact. Under the 62-31 plan, both are reconfigured. In the voting map, Senate 11 includes all of Carbon County and about half of Sweetwater County, eastward to the outskirts of Rock Springs, Green River and Fontenelle on the west. The towns of Medicine Bow, McFadden and Arlington in Carbon County define the eastern edge of the district. The House District 47 map is the same, except Rawlins, Sinclair and Fort Steele are in House District 15.
HD 47 Representative Jerry Paxton said given some of plans presented over the last two months, the final outcome could have been worse.
Paxton said he doesn’t think the expansion south from Farson-Eden in Sweetwater County to the edges of Green River will add much drive time to cover the district. HD 47 is already the largest legislative district in the nation, and the new map doesn’t make it any smaller.
Bairoil at the northeastern tip of Sweetwater County remains in Paxton’s district. Rock River on the western edge of Albany County has been removed from House District 47 and Senate District 11. Under the 62-31 plan, the town of 200 is now in House District 14, which is the northern half of Albany County. Rock River Mayor C.J. Leslie complained during Corporations Committee hearings that her been underserved. Representative Paxton addressed the allegation yesterday, shrugging it off as “political.”
Paxton said the delegation of Albany County, which is Democrat, was trying to keep their county unified, and not have to share a legislator with Carbon County, which in recent years, has been mostly Republican.
Albany County’s effort to push back against any plan that would have made it share representation with other counties did not go unnoticed. Goshen County, which is split three ways in the 62-31 plan, made note of Albany County thinking of itself as somehow “special” during last week’s meeting. Representative Mike Grear of Worland, also took a swing.
In the end, Albany County got its way. Plan 6 gives Albany four house districts nested in two senate districts all self-contained within its county lines. Problems with drawing districts in Representative Grear’s part of west central Wyoming led to the I-80 compromise being tossed. Sabrina King, an attorney with the ACLU raised the specter of a lawsuit if corporations didn’t go in a different direction.
Even though the Big Horn problems were fixable, the threat of litigation worked like a cattle prod and moved the committee away from the I-80 and toward the 11th hour plan introduced for the first time last week.
The 62-31 plan gives Albany and Laramie Counties what they wanted all long. Albany County is self-contained. Laramie County gets an extra seat in the House. Michael Swank of the Legislative Service Office described the plan this way.
The plan is a variation on a map that appeared briefly in the redistricting process last summer. It was set aside then because it expands government. Senator Tara Nethercott of Cheyenne said she resisted the plan at first, but recently concluded that it solves several problems.
Expanding government comes at a cost that will require an additional appropriation during the budget session if the plan is adopted. Sen. Nethercott put the cost at $200,000.
Although adopted on an 11-3 vote, the plan is likely to be amended before the committee’s next meeting. It could face further amendments or even its demise during session. Plan 6 could even end up in court or even vetoed.
Veteran Senator Charles Scott of Natrona County has seen it all before. In 1992, Governor Mike Sullivan vetoed a redistricting plan that had passed the legislature. The legislature received word of the veto at 8 a.m. Scott teed up a backup plan he had on top and introduced it at the start of the afternoon session that same day. It passed. He has a backup plan ready to go this year, too.
Scott’s plan is sort of an ace in the hole in the high stakes poker game of redistricting. It’s a 60-30 plan, keeping the House and Senate at its current size. All of the districts are within population deviation. Scott’s plan and the 62-31 plan are both available on the legislature’s web site.
Amendments both will be introduced during Corporations next meeting, set for February 11th. The Budget session begins three days later, on the 14th.
Related: HD 47 remains intact, for the moment
Related: Committee returns to work on redrawing legislative districts today
