There’s a lot of interest in how the Washington State Redistricting Commission decides where to put Washington’s new congressional district. Good-sized crowds are showing up at hearings from Everett to Walla Walla to offer advice to this five-person panel.

Alas, the all-male quintet tasked wi

th resetting the borders of the five Snohomish County Council districts is operating in relative obscurity.

Almost no one’s been in the chamber each week when these redistricting commissioners gather around a table, pull out their political Crayolas and get to work trying to evenly spread the county’s 713,335 residents.

They’ve pondered the merits of five maps. More may be in the offing before this group recommends one for adoption by the County Council. The council is expected to receive and act on it by the end of August.

Here are the maps seen so far:

One pushes Granite Falls from the 1st District (Councilman John Koster) into the 5th District (Councilman Dave Somers). Another leaves the town alone and instead moves the Tulalip Reservation from the 1st District into the 2nd District (Councilman Brian Sullivan). There’s a map which moves Tulalip and does some tinkering in the 4th District (Councilman Dave Gossett).

They’ve looked at an alignment suggested by a man who showed up at the July 12 meeting. It puts all of east Snohomish County into one district which means Koster, a Republican, and Somers, a Democrat, would wind up in the same district.

This Wednesday, they’ll look at a map using I-5 as the key boundary. Under this plan, the 2nd District shifts north out of Mukilteo and into Stanwood, leaving Sullivan, a Democrat, in the lurch as he lives in Mukilteo. There’s other fallout which will become clearer in a couple of days.

As they’ve proceeded, the panel’s two Democrats and two Republicans have played nice though the mood may get a bit tenser soon.

Where they’ve jousted most is on the proposal to move the Tulalip Reservation. Larry Stickney, a Republican, suggested it and Bob Chapman, a Democrat, couldn’t help wondering why.

Stickney said it’s a workload issue. Koster’s district includes a large swath of unincorporated area. This means a heavier load of constituent work than is required of those serving in mostly urban districts. Stickney also said the move hitches the Tulalips with the city of Everett just as it is in the 38th Legislative District.

Chapman, a Democratic Party leader in Everett, got a whiff of politics from the proposal — and it’s easy to understand why.

Stickney works for Koster and when Koster steps down in 2013 because of term limits, Stickney may run for the seat.

He is a bleeding heart for the conservative movement who in 2009 ran the unsuccessful campaign of Referendum 71 to limit the rights of same-sex couples. He obviously would do much better among voters in Granite Falls than those on the Democrat-laden Tulalip Reservation.

Moreover, the Tulalip Tribes could produce a strong candidate for the job like state Rep. John McCoy or invest heavily into one more to their liking than Stickney.

This little matter could heat up to a full boil in the commission’s few remaining meetings.

You won’t know unless you tune in.

Political reporter Jerry Cornfield’s blog, The Petri Dish, is at www.heraldnet.com. Contact him at 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.