[Vision2020] Legislative Redistricting and the North Idaho"Compromise"

[lfalen]

This compromise plan is just as bad or worse than the original Democrat plan. If part of Latah is to go with Clearwater, it should only be Juiaetta and Kendrick.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: "Tom Hansen" thansen at moscow.com
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2011 07:46:11 -0700
To: "Moscow Vision 2020" vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Legislative Redistricting and the North Idaho"Compromise"

> Courtesy of today's (September 7, 2011) Spokesman-Review.
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> 
> Panel fails to draw districts by deadline
> 
> Idaho commission likely to be ordered back to work
> 
> BOISE - Idaho's bipartisan citizen redistricting commission failed Tuesday
> to agree on new legislative and congressional districts by its
> constitutionally set deadline, forcing the issue into the courts.
> 
> "I think the citizens of the state are going to be disgusted that we cannot
> get to a solution here when we're down to just a handful of areas," GOP
> Commissioner Lorna Finman, of Rathdrum, pleaded as the clock ticked away
> Tuesday. "We are so close on this map. . There needed to be a little give
> and take."
> 
> Said GOP Co-Chairman Evan Frasure, of Pocatello, "It's a shame that we
> couldn't get there."
> 
> Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa said he's ready to sue first thing today
> in the Idaho Supreme Court. "Papers are prepared," he said.
> 
> Without new legislative and congressional district lines, Idaho has lines
> from 10 years ago that don't reflect the big population shifts since then
> and therefore don't comply with the U.S. Constitution's one-person, one-vote
> rule. Ysursa said he expects the court to order the commission back to work.
> 
> Finman and Democratic Commissioner Julie Kane, of Lapwai, reached agreement
> early Tuesday on a new legislative district plan for North Idaho that drew
> praise from all the other commissioners, but the panel wasn't ready to vote
> on just that piece without agreement on the rest of the state.
> 
> That plan would force North Idaho Sens. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, and Joyce
> Broadsword, R-Sagle, into a face-off in the GOP primary if both want to stay
> in office; it would also put several current incumbent House members from
> North Idaho into competition with each other. But the plan won praise as
> being reflective of public testimony from North Idaho about how new district
> lines should be drawn.
> 
> The North Idaho compromise plan doesn't split precincts and doesn't violate
> the rule that districts must be connected by highways. GOP Commissioner Lou
> Esposito thanked Finman and Kane, saying, "I believe if we go back and look
> at the testimony that we received up north that it gives incredible weight
> to that testimony, and I applaud both of you."
> 
> Finman and Kane, the only two women on the six-member panel, offered over
> the weekend to mediate between the feuding male members as the panel worked
> through the holiday. Democratic Co-Chairman Allen Andersen said he liked the
> idea, saying it would "get all of the testosterone out of it." GOP
> Commissioner Lou Esposito said, "If that's what it takes, I'm all for it."
> 
> But even that mediation failed to bring the two sides together in time. By
> Tuesday afternoon, Esposito was calling a Democratic proposal for
> legislative district lines in Ada County "an abomination," and "the
> definition of gerrymander." Democratic Commissioner George Moses blamed the
> Republicans for the breakdown.
> 
> In 1994, Idaho voters amended the state constitution to take redistricting
> out of lawmakers' hands and give it to a bipartisan citizen commission,
> which is meeting publicly and which held hearings around the state before
> trying its hand at new maps.
> 
> The first commission, a decade ago, reached a plan in 76 days, but it was
> overturned in court amid multiple lawsuits; in the end, that commission
> settled on a plan that held but included unpopular, sprawling districts in
> North Idaho and southeastern Idaho. The state constitution sets a 90-day
> limit.
> 
> ----------------------
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> The North Idaho compromise
> 
>  
> 
> The North Idaho compromise legislative district map, L-71, developed by GOP
> Commissioner Lorna Finman of Rathdrum, and Democratic Commissioner Julie
> Kane, of Lapwai puts Boundary County and the majority of Bonner County,
> including the entire Clark Fork area, into District 1. District 2 contains
> the southernmost precincts of Bonner County plus northern parts of Kootenai
> County. "That's a very similar community of interest, kind of rural
> small-town area," Finman said. District 3 contains the core of Coeur
> d'Alene, while District 4 has mostly Post Falls and the Rathdrum area.
> 
>  
> 
> District 5 consists of Shoshone County and parts of Benewah, Kootenai and
> Latah counties, including the Moscow area, along with most of the Coeur
> d'Alene Reservation. District 6 pairs two rural Latah County precincts with
> all of Nez Perce County and part of Lewis County, and includes most of the
> Nez Perce reservation; while District 7 has part of Benewah County along
> with all of Clearwater and Idaho counties, and part of Lewis County.
> 
>  
> 
> The plan would mean at least four North Idaho incumbent legislators would
> lose their seats. Sens. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, and Joyce Broadsword,
> R-Sagle, would end up in the same district, forcing a face-off in the GOP
> primary if they both want to stay in office. In the proposed new District 2,
> there would be three incumbent state representatives vying for two seats:
> Reps. Phil Hart, R-Athol; Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens; and Marge
> Chadderdon, R-Coeur d'Alene. In the proposed new District 5, there would be
> four incumbents vying for two House seats: Reps. Tom Trail, R-Moscow;
> Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow; Dick Harwood, R-St. Maries; and Shannon McMillan,
> R-Silverton.
> 
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> The proposed North Idaho "Compromise"
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> 
> NorthIdahoCompromise_L71_B.jpg
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> "Counties shall not be divided to protect a particular political party or a
> particular incumbent."
> 
> http://legislature.idaho.gov/idstat/Title72/T72CH15SECT72-1506.htm
> 
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> 
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
> 
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> 
> Tom Hansen
> 
> Moscow, Idaho
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