Legislative redistricting meeting in Worland Thursday

WORLAND — The Big Horn Basin or Region 8 redistricting working group will be holding a meeting this Thursday, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Worland Community Center Complex.

County clerks from Washakie, Park, Big Horn and Hot Springs counties have been working since October on redistricting plans for the House and Senate district in the Big Horn Basin region/Region 8.

Washakie County Clerk Mary Grace Strauch said they have also included Fremont County in the discussions as one proposal does impact the Fremont County districts. She said as they were working on the maps they coordinated their efforts with local legislators from the counties.

Strauch said a staff member from the Legislative Service Office will preside over the meeting, first informing the audience about the redistricting requirements and why redistricting is necessary.

The two proposed maps for the districts in the Big Horn Basin will then be presented and there will be a time for questions, Strauch said.

Following the meeting, the preferred plan will be forwarded to the Legislative Service Office on Friday, Nov. 19, and then it will be reviewed by the Joint Corporations Committee at their meeting Dec. 1-2.

Redistricting maps will be approved during the Wyoming Legislature in February.

REDISTRICTING

According to the Legislative Service Office website, the Wyoming Constitution requires that the Legislature redraw state legislative districts at the first budget session following the federal census.

There are currently 60 single-member House Districts and 30 single-member Senate Districts with two House Districts nested into one Senate District.

For Washakie County there is House District 27 and Senate District 20. Senate District 20 encompasses House District 27 and House District 28.

According to redistricting information on the LSO and the Wyoming Legislature, the state grew by just over 13,000 people with nine counties increasing in population and 14 counties declining in population.

Region 8 with Hot Springs, Washakie, Big Horn and Park counties increased by 233 residents but the growth was uneven with only Park County showing an increase.

Region 8 has six House Districts — 24, 25, 26 27, 28 and 50 — and three Senate Districts — 18, 19 and 20.

According to the LSO three of the six House Districts are currently within the 5% deviation standard and only one of the three Senate Districts is within the 5% deviation standard.

The ideal population per district, per the LSO, was 8,230 in each House District and 16,459 in each Senate District in 2000; 9,394 in each House District and 18,788 in each Senate District in 2010. They are proposing an ideal population for 2020 of an increase of 220 per House District to 9,614, and 440 per Senate District, to 19,228.

According to challenges for Region 8 noted by the LSO House District 28 and District 20 already reach into Fremont County with 622 people in Shoshoni and 63 in Lysite.

The Big Horn Basin population of 53,451 is about 1,350 people short for the ideal number per district 9,133 would equal 54,798.

According to the LSO Fremont and Natrona counties each have population over the ideal average per district with Fremont having about 2,700 population flexibility and Natrona about 6,800 flexibility (primarily from Casper eastward).

According to the LSO, Senate District 20 shows a current deviation of -12.38%, needing 2,381 additional residents for the ideal district size. Senate District 18 in Park County is a -.48% deviation. Senate District 19 with Park and northern Big Horn is at -5.59% deviation.

House District 27, Washakie and southern Big Horn County, showed a drop in population to a -15.10% deviation, and House District 28, Hot Springs, Park and Fremont counties, dropped to a -9.66% deviation. House District 26, Big Horn and Park counties, dropped to a -8.99% deviation.

Two House Districts in Park County, HD 24 and HD 25 are both within the -5% deviation at -4% and -3%, respectively. House District 50 in Park County increased at a +3.1% deviation.

In the Big Horn Basin, all but House District 50 in Park County showed a drop in population. House District 50 saw an increase of 3.1%.

Strauch said they have two plans that will be shared with the public Thursday.

BACKGROUND

According to an LSO memo, “’One person, one vote’ provides a guiding principle for all redistricting efforts. This phrase encompasses the notion that the full protections of the United States Constitution are imposed on State actions impacting voting in general, and legislative redistricting in particular, through the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. “The concept of ‘one person, one vote’ has been described by the United States Supreme Court as meaning that “as nearly as is practicable one man’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.” In furtherance of this principle, the United States Supreme Court has held that when drawing state legislative boundaries ‘the overriding objective must be substantial equality of population among the various districts, so that the vote of any citizen is approximately equal in weight to that of any other citizen in the State.’”

In 2016 the Supreme Court set out a formulation on state legislative district deviation and the one-person, one-vote principle that states, “When drawing state and local legislative districts, jurisdictions are permitted to deviate somewhat from perfect population equality to accommodate traditional districting objectives, among them, preserving the integrity of political subdivisions, maintaining communities of interest, and creating geographic compactness. Where the maximum population deviation between the largest and smallest district is less than 10%, the Court has held, a state or local legislative map presumptively complies with the one-person, one-vote rule. Maximum deviations above 10% are presumptively impermissible.”