OLYMPIA — The people drawing new political boundaries for the state aren’t going to meet their self-imposed goal of finishing in November.
Members of the Redistricting Commission are making progress, however, and will meet their state-mandated obligation to finish before Jan. 1, said Lura Powell, the non-voting chairwoman of the panel.
“I think we’re all finding out it’s more complicated and not as easy as we thought,” said Powell, who lives in Richland and was picked as the lone nonpartisan member.
The four voting members of the panel, two from each party, have been tasked with redrawing the lines for congressional and state legislative districts based on the results of the 2010 census.
The group plans to meet every week in Olympia until the job is done, Powell said. Members said at a meeting last Monday that they might have new legislative maps to release to the public by this week.
Redistricting is required every 10 years to ensure the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are divided as equally as possible by population. Each decade, some states gain and some states lose seats based on shifts in population. At the state level, redistricting involves adjustments to district lines to accommodate a change in the number of seats or to balance out the populations of districts.
This time, Washington gets an extra congressional district. The state grew more than 14 percent from 2000 to 2010 — from about 5.9 million to 6.7 million, an increase of more than 800,000, according to the Census Bureau.
Based on maps issued by commissioners so far, the new 10th congressional district could include part of Snohomish County.
The commission is made up of two Republicans and two Democrats appointed by party caucuses in the Legislature. This year, it’s former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton of Clyde Hill and former state Rep. Tom Huff of Gig Harbor on the GOP side. The Democrats are Tim Ceis of Seattle, who was deputy mayor under former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, and Dean Foster of Olympia, who was chief of staff for former Gov. Booth Gardner.
The commission held public hearings at 18 locations around the state over the summer and has been receiving emails and online comments and at meetings in Olympia, Powell said.
The commission is weighing all the competing interests, she said.
“You can’t be everything to all people and give everyone their wish,” Powell said.
Each voting commissioner came out with his own set of maps over the summer, both for congressional and legislative districts. The panel members then split into two groups, Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other, and came out with two more legislative maps last month.
Both of these maps propose changes to the seven existing legislative districts in Snohomish County. Four need to grow and three need to shrink.
As a result, four lawmakers, including Rep. Marko Liias, D-Edmonds, would be displaced by one or more of the proposed maps. Other lawmakers who could find themselves outside their present district are Sen. Val Stevens, R-Arlington, Sen. Paull Shin, D-Edmonds, and Rep. Luis Moscoso, D-Mountlake Terrace.
Of the four original congressional maps, none displaces a sitting incumbent, and each suggests a different place for the new district. All four also contain at least one congressional district uniting communities in Eastern and Western Washington.
Now the commission has split into bipartisan groups and is working on final legislative maps. Members said they plan to finish these first before switching gears to tackle the congressional boundaries.
“We’re making some progress, pretty good progress,” Ceis said. “I think we should stick with it.”
Herald reporter Jerry Cornfield contributed to this story.
Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439; sheets@heraldnet.com.
More online
For more information on the political redistricting process, go to www. redistricting.wa.gov.
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