State redistricting plan meets resistance

Initial public reaction shows a plan for new Iowa congressional districts faces resistance in some parts of the state.

Western Iowa Republicans made it clear Monday they do not like the plan that would throw Pottawattamie and Polk counties together and end U.S. Rep. Steve King's representation of southwest Iowa.

Jeff Jorgensen, chairman of the Pottawattamie County Republican Party, said Council Bluffs was combined into a congressional district with Polk County before and he does not want to see Pottawattamie County to become “the forgotten stepchild again” in a newly configured 3rd congressional district.

“I am adamantly opposed to this,” said Michael Patomson, one of more than 40 Iowans who turned out for the first public hearing being held this week by a special five-member Temporary Redistricting Advisory Committee. Monday's meeting had a heavy GOP flavor because the public hearing took place next door to the local Republican central committee meeting.

Several of the speakers said they were upset that King, the current 5th District GOP representative from Kiron, would be moved into a new 4th congressional district that mostly would encompass northwest and north-central Iowa.

King would be combined in a district with current 4th District GOP U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, although one speaker said he expected the two to work out an arrangement whereby they would not face each other in 2012.

“I will never take my King bumper sticker off my car,” said Greg Casady.

Pam Wilson said she liked the plan because King no longer would be representing Pottawattamie County, saying “we have not been heard by our representative. We see this as an opportunity.”

Cynthia Keithley said she was “very impressed” by the way the congressional and legislative reapportionment maps were drawn by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency, noting that Democrats also saw two of their incumbent congressmen - Bruce Braley of Waterloo and Dave Loebsack of Mount Vernon - thrown together in the newly proposed 1st District.

Rep. Leonard Boswell, a Democrat from Des Moines, would be the incumbent in the new 3rd district stretching from Des Moines to Council Bluffs. The new proposed 2nd District is an open seat for now.

“That's pretty darn fair,” Keithley said. “We hope that this plan works.”

Ed Cook, an attorney and drafter for the Legislative Services Agency, said the four congressional districts carved out of the Iowa landscape for the proposal vary only .0005 percent from the ideal population of 761,589 people per district. Commission member Lance Ehmeke of Sioux City said the figures reflect how Iowans “have been voting with their feet” over the past 10 years “and these are the returns.”

The five-member commission is conducting public hearings this week in Council Bluffs, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and Bettendorf before making its recommendation to the split-control Legislature and Gov. Terry Branstad by April 11 whether they should adopt the first plan or hold out for a second draft. Lawmakers then would have three days to render an “up-or-down” verdict on the first plan.

Either the House, which is controlled by Republicans 60-40, or the Senate, where Democrats hold a 26-24 majority, or Branstad can reject the initial Legislative Services Agency proposal, which would require the agency to draw another plan.