New election map may force Linn supervisor’s move

Linn County residents will get a clearer view this week of the county's election map for the next decade, and it may look much like the present one.

On Thursday, the county's temporary redistricting commission will pick a final proposed elections map from among three options. The maps now called Options 8A and 5B would place Democratic Supervisors Lu Barron and Linda Langston in a new District 2 stretching from Cedar Rapids' southeast corner to Lisbon.

Langston said she and her husband have been talking about a move, anyway.

“Our kids are grown and gone, and both of us have talked on-and-off about moving,” she said. “We'd actually been talking to a Realtor in the general sense.”

Moving is out of the question for Barron.

“A couple years ago we moved into our retirement home, so I've made it real known I'm not going to move because my husband and I are situated,” said Barron.

The third option, 2B, would place all the current supervisors in separate districts.

Neither of the county's two Republican supervisors, Brent Oleson of Marion and John Harris of Palo, face residency issues under any of the three scenarios, although their districts would change by varying degrees. Options 8A and 5B would also create a new District 1 in the county's southwest corner, where no incumbent presently lives.

Option 2B developed after the redistricting commission's July 12 meeting, when commissioners asked elections staff to adjust an earlier proposal to remove an oddly-shaped district within Cedar Rapids. The result just meets the state requirement that districts be within 1 percent of an even distribution of the county's 211,226 residents.

In Linn County's case, the maximum overall variation would be 422 people. Option 2B's variation: 422.

“They asked us to make it meet the guidelines, and it did,” said Auditor Joel Miller. “It's totally based on the current map, and they made it work, but go back to the roots.”

“The law tells us when we're creating not to consider incumbents' locations,” said Tim Box, the county's deputy elections commissioner. “We're supposed to keep that completely out of our mindset. As an option they wanted to see something that was similar to what we have now.”

While redistricting usually comes up just once a decade, the “roots” Miller referred to run only to 2007, when voters approved a change from the previous practice of at-large elections. That year's redistricting commission first unanimously selected one option, then switched its pick on a party-line vote that led to a heated public hearing with accusations of gerrymandering to favor Democrats.

“This process looks to be far more fair and not political, yet,” said Oleson. “I think it's been a very non-partisan process.”

Oleson said he doesn't have a favorite among the options, and Democratic Supervisor Ben Rogers said “I would he happy with any of the three maps.”

Langston and Barron suggested Option 2B, the closest to the present map, would be less confusing to residents still getting accustomed to district representation.

“We've been trying to do a lot of education, and if that's dramatically changed I don't think that benefits the voters,” said Barron.

“There are still people who struggle with (the fact) we're in districts,” said Langston.

Efforts to contact Harris weren't successful this afternoon.

The supervisor-appointed redistricting commission meets at 3 p.m. Thursday at Linn County West in Westdale Mall. After picking a district map they'll also schedule the required public hearing at which members of the public may recommend alternatives.

The commission then sends its report on the map and the hearing to the county supervisors, who adopt or reject the plan. A rejected plan would return to the commission for amending.

The plan is submitted to the Iowa secretary of state, which will reject the plan if it does not meet legal standards.

The commission is also scheduled to create new voting precincts for the county's unincorporated areas.

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