New redistricting deadline approved

By David Ammons

Associated Press

OLYMPIA — Washington’s new legislative and congressional district boundaries now have Olympia’s seal of approval, and barring a court challenge they’ll be used for the fall elections.

Although few incumbents are threatened, and neither party can point to a direct victory in the redistricting process, the new maps do make significant boundary changes to reflect the state’s population growth of 1 million over the past decade.

It’s estimated that one out of four voters will be in a different legislative or congressional district, particularly from Everett north to the Canadian border, in southwest Washington and the greater Seattle area. Eastern Washington is less affected by the changes.

Gov. Gary Locke on Tuesday signed emergency legislation, the first bill of the new session, lifting a legal cloud that had threatened to shift the map-drawing to the state Supreme Court.

The citizen Redistricting Commission missed the Dec. 15 deadline for approving the new maps but met a more lenient New Year’s Day deadline mentioned in the state constitution.

The commission was created by constitutional amendment nearly 20 years ago to take the time-consuming and intensely political process out of the hands of the Legislature and the governor.

At the suggestion of Attorney General Christine Gregoire, the Legislature rushed through a bill to provide a simple retroactive fix: It changed the statutory deadline to coincide with the Jan. 1 constitutional deadline.

Locke said that should be the end of it, although he conceded "the courts always have the last word" if a challenge is lodged.

Locke called it "a fair process and a fair result" that will produce a large number of competitive districts, cause minimum disruption and achieve political balance without "some of the blatant gerrymandering that occurs in many other states."

Redistricting is required once every decade to redraw boundaries so political districts contain nearly identical populations. Using the latest U.S. Census figures, commissioners were directed to draw nine congressional districts of about 650,000 people each and 49 legislative districts with about 120,000 people apiece.

Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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