This Washington
Mapping Out the Fight Over the 10th Congressional District
The Secretary of State (Washington's) sent out a handy map this morning to show which congressional districts have grown over the past 10 years. (We gained 830,000 people overall since the last census, and looking at where they settled—that'd be east King County and north Pierce county—will give us a starting place on how to begin redistricting.)
The population growth has mostly been in the 8th District (Eastside Seattle suburbs out to Snoqualmie) and in the 3rd District (Olympia down to the Columbia river and over to the Eastern edges of Skamania and Lewis county and West to the ocean). The growth in the 3rd has come at the northern end of the district.
With the current nine districts, The 8th is 60,000 over the target number for a congressional district in our state, which is 740,000. The 3rd is 40,000 over.
Dividing the the state into 10 districts changes the numbers, but not the status of which districts are overpopulated. The 8th is still busting at the seams— 137,000 over the ideal population for a ten-way split, 672,454. The 3rd remains the next most overcrowded, with 115,000 too many voters.
Additionally, according to the Secretary of State's summary:
The new district would correspond to the geography of that growth only in that squishy amoeba way. You’d start around the edges of the 3rd and the 8th, fussing around with boundaries to redistribute the numbers, pushing the redistricting out into surrounding districts.
It seems likely that the new district will show up in the central Puget Sound which will bring some drama to the already partisan he-said-she-said over the status of the Seattle suburbs. Is it red or is it blue. This year's state legislative races hardly answered that question—with the Republicans picking up three senate seats (that they'd held in the past), but failing to pick up any house seats on the eastside burbs.
The new district will be drawn up by a five-person commission. The Democrats appoint two people, the Republicans appoint two people, and those four appoint a fifth. Hard ball negotiator, former Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis is one of the Democrats' picks. The Republicans have not announced their choices yet.
The population growth has mostly been in the 8th District (Eastside Seattle suburbs out to Snoqualmie) and in the 3rd District (Olympia down to the Columbia river and over to the Eastern edges of Skamania and Lewis county and West to the ocean). The growth in the 3rd has come at the northern end of the district.
With the current nine districts, The 8th is 60,000 over the target number for a congressional district in our state, which is 740,000. The 3rd is 40,000 over.
Dividing the the state into 10 districts changes the numbers, but not the status of which districts are overpopulated. The 8th is still busting at the seams— 137,000 over the ideal population for a ten-way split, 672,454. The 3rd remains the next most overcrowded, with 115,000 too many voters.
Additionally, according to the Secretary of State's summary:
The 2nd and the 4th are both about 90,000 too big and the 1st is about 67,000 too big. The 5th and the 9th need to shrink by about 50,000. The 6th and 7th are about 34,000 over ideal size.
The new district would correspond to the geography of that growth only in that squishy amoeba way. You’d start around the edges of the 3rd and the 8th, fussing around with boundaries to redistribute the numbers, pushing the redistricting out into surrounding districts.
It seems likely that the new district will show up in the central Puget Sound which will bring some drama to the already partisan he-said-she-said over the status of the Seattle suburbs. Is it red or is it blue. This year's state legislative races hardly answered that question—with the Republicans picking up three senate seats (that they'd held in the past), but failing to pick up any house seats on the eastside burbs.
The new district will be drawn up by a five-person commission. The Democrats appoint two people, the Republicans appoint two people, and those four appoint a fifth. Hard ball negotiator, former Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis is one of the Democrats' picks. The Republicans have not announced their choices yet.
