Latest redistricting plan keeps Olympia together

Plan to meld west Olympia with Shelton, Bremerton withdrawn

BRAD SHANNON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published November 6, 2001

OLYMPIA -- Odds got a little better Monday that most -- if not all -- Olympia voters will remain in the 22nd Legislative District next year.

One of the four partisan members of the citizen Redistricting Commission, Republican John Giese, withdrew his proposal to shave part of west Olympia from the 22nd district and link it with the 35th District, which includes Shelton and parts of Bremerton.

"It looks like it's moving in that direction" of a single Olympia-area district, said Democratic commissioner Bobbi Krebs-McMullen. "It certainly makes sense to do that.''

"I thought there were good comments on it," Giese said after Monday's special meeting of the commission, during which he and other commissioners offered revisions to draft plans they announced in September. "I was kind of out of step with the other three" commissioners.

New plan

Giese's new plan puts Tumwater into the 35th District, restores west Olympia's city limits to the 22nd District and runs that district south as far as 93rd Avenue.

However, Giese said, he's willing to consider bringing that southern boundary to the north to bring more of Tumwater into the district with Lacey and the north Thurston County peninsulas.

Monday marked commission members' second formal exchange of plan ideas.

The commissioners are working hard to meet a Dec. 15 deadline for giving the Legislature a map that draws new boundaries for the state's nine congressional and 49 legislative districts.

The task is required every 10 years to reflect population shifts identified in the U.S. Census to ensure that everyone's vote gets roughly equal representation.

Growing consensus

Krebs-McMullen said she thinks the group is making good progress and staying on schedule.

The commission's growing consensus on what to do with legislative boundaries around Olympia was one of several instances where commissioners who had proposed radical changes decided, on second thought, to withdraw them in favor of keeping things closer to what is on maps today.

Dean Foster, a Democratic commissioner from Olympia, withdrew a plan to link the eastern half of Lewis County with an Eastern Washington legislative district that includes Yakima.

Foster was the only commissioner to suggest the change.

In a less controversial move, Republican commissioner Dick Derham of King County said he wanted to move the 20th District, which takes in the southern part of Thurston County, completely out of Pierce County, which all three 20th District legislators want to see happen.

Despite the political gamesmanship that lurks near redistricting efforts, Krebs-McMullen said the map changes represent a good-faith effort by all the commissioners to respect city and county lines as well as common communities.

Krebs-McMullen said that her new maps keep Bothell in a single district and Renton in two, down from the half-dozen that have crisscrossed Renton the past decade.

Foster said the goal of keeping communities intact might take precedence over striving to get a perfect population balance in the political districts.

More issues

Commissioners left one major issue largely untouched.

The commission reserved discussion of U.S. congressional boundaries for a later date.

However, the two Democrats did drop proposals to move Mercer Island into the 7th Congressional District with Seattle.

Still up for discussion are the Republicans' proposals to move all or part of Olympia out of the 3rd Congressional District, which is served by U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, and into the 6th, which is served by Rep. Norm Dicks.

Commissioners said they need time to review each others' revised proposals to see what the new maps show.

They'll return to Olympia to further their discussions at 1 p.m. Monday, Nov. 19.

Brad Shannon, political editor for The Olympian, can be reached at 360-753-1688 or shannonbrad@hotmail.com.

What's next

The Washington State Redistricting Commission will meet at 1 p.m. Nov. 19 at its Olympia head-quarters, 505 E. Union Ave.

For information, visit www.redistricting.wa.gov or call 360-586-9000.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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