With new census results in, clock starts ticking on Iowa redistricting

The clock began ticking Thursday on Iowa's redistricting process, a major step in preparing for next year's elections.

It will be several weeks, and could even be some months, before anything is decided. But it won't be a minute too soon for anxious officeholders - as well as potential challengers.

Until the new lines are drawn, analysts and consultants say, many of the hard and fast political decisions are idling.

“Essentially, it is frozen. There's nothing anyone can do until the new lines are drawn,” said Steve Grubbs, a Davenport-based political consultant.

He said he already has heard from a Republican interested in challenging U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa.

His advice: Wait. It does little good to do too much work until the political landscape, quite literally, is shaped.

The new data, which was sent to the state Thursday, shows that all of Iowa's districts will need to gain people to reach a population of 761,589 people, the ideal if all of Iowa's congressional districts are to have an equal number.

That's not a surprise. Back in December, the Census Bureau announced Iowa would go from five congressional districts to four, which guaranteed Iowa's four new congressmen would be representing more people than ever before.

Iowa's 5th District in the western part of the state is the smallest, at 577,453 people, according to the new data. The 1st District, which includes the Quad-Cities, is next, at 596,443. The 3rd District, which is centered in Des Moines, had the largest population, at 642,116.

In 2000, Iowa's five districts each held about 585,000 people.

Iowa's redistricting process is unique in that it is overseen by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency, not by politicians, as in most other states.

The agency has until March 31 to give a first proposal of new congressional and state legislative districts to the Iowa Legislature. It can approve or reject, but not amend, it.

If the plan is rejected, another plan must be submitted in 35 days. If that's rejected, a third plan must be submitted within 35 days. That one can be amended.

If the legislature doesn't approve a plan by Sept. 1 that Gov. Terry Branstad signs into law by Sept. 15, then the process is turned over to the Iowa Supreme Court. That's never happened since the current process was adopted in 1980.

Trying to figure out what the new districts will look like is a long shot.

Ten years ago, after the legislature rejected the Legislative Services Agency's first proposal, it went back to the drawing board and came up with 77 potential maps with similarly populated congressional districts.

A nearly equal population is just one of the requirements of Iowa's process. Congressional boundaries also can't divide counties. And political boundaries must be compact and contiguous.

While other states' districts might weave up and down alleys, that's avoided in Iowa.

“You don't want a noodle across the state,” said Ed Cook, senior counsel for the Legislative Services Agency.

State legislative districts also must be drawn with an eye toward avoiding, as much as possible, dividing cities and counties.