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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Courtesy of today’s (September 7, 2011) Spokesman-Review.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;margin-bottom:7.5pt'><b><span lang=EN style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Panel fails to draw districts by deadline<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto'><span lang=EN style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#444444'>Idaho commission likely to be ordered back to work<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>Said GOP Co-Chairman Evan Frasure, of Pocatello, “It’s a shame that we couldn’t get there.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span lang=EN style='color:black'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>----------------------</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN style='font-size:21.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>The North Idaho compromise</span></b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>----------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>The proposed North Idaho “Compromise”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><img width=803 height=668 id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image003.jpg@01CC6D30.EDA3BB10" alt="NorthIdahoCompromise_L71_B.jpg"></span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>“Counties shall not be divided to protect a particular political party or a particular incumbent.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><a href="http://legislature.idaho.gov/idstat/Title72/T72CH15SECT72-1506.htm">http://legislature.idaho.gov/idstat/Title72/T72CH15SECT72-1506.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Seeya round town, Moscow.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Tom Hansen<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Moscow, Idaho<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>