Linn supervisors pick new district map

CEDAR RAPIDS - Linn County supervisors reluctantly adopted a new county elections map Friday that, among other things, leaves all five in separate districts.

“It sells the rural folks short,” said Supervisor John Harris, R-Palo. “We're back again with a metro-centric board.”

The supervisors and the redistricting commission they'd appointed sought to avoid such a situation. The commission delivered, and the supervisors unanimously approved, a map that placed parts of Cedar Rapids in three districts, one of which had a rural majority.

That gave rural residents a mathematical chance of electing two rural supervisors to the five-member board. It also put Cedar Rapids Democrats Lu Barron and Langston, who live about two miles apart in southeast Cedar Rapids, in the same new district.

“It's just a sad day,” said Supervisor Linda Langston, D-Cedar Rapids, who'd considered moving after the initial map was proposed. “We played this very up-front, very transparent. We did this in a very non-partisan manner.”

But Secretary of State Matt Schultz ruled against the map, citing state law that requires cities to be divided into as few districts as possible - three, in Cedar Rapids' case.

County staff advising the redistricting commission interpreted the law to mean district compactness and shared borders were as important as the fewest-district provision, but the supervisors' vote to approve another map removes their legal standing for a court challenge.

Harris cast a protest vote in the 4-1 decision.

Assuming Schultz signs off on  the plan - likely but not assumed, given recent history - the incumbents will represent the same-numbered districts when the new map takes effect in January, although the districts themselves will change. Harris' new District 5, a doughnut-shaped district encircling the metro area, represents just what they'd hoped to avoid.

“We should probably go with a motion to give him a driving stipend,” Langston said.

Keeping the same district numbers means Langston, Ben Rogers, D-Cedar Rapids, and Brent Oleson, R-Marion will run for re-election next year. Harris and Barron will run in 2014.