Fate of first redistricting plan up to Legislature

DES MOINES — Lawmakers will convene Tuesday at the Capitol for a special session of the Iowa Legislature where they will consider the first round of proposed new election boundary maps for the decennial redistricting process.

Here is a look at what to expect from this special session.

When is it?

Legislators are scheduled to begin their work day at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Capitol in Des Moines. A committee meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m.

What are they doing?

Lawmakers must consider and vote on the first set of proposed new maps for Iowa’s political boundaries. This is a part of the state’s redistricting process. Every 10 years, states across the country redraw their political maps to reflect changes in their populations according to the latest census.

MORE MAPS: See all the proposed redistricting maps for Iowa, including state legislative districts

What is redistricting?

Iowa’s redistricting process is widely hailed — both from within the state’s borders and beyond — for its nonpartisan nature. In other states, lawmakers create the new maps and then vote on them. That creates the ability for lawmakers to draw new election boundaries that serve their own interests, rather than creating maps that are politically and demographically fair.

In Iowa, the maps are drawn and proposed by the Legislative Services Agency, a state department of nonpartisan legal and fiscal analysts. State law requires the maps to be drawn using population and demographic data and without any consideration for potential political impacts. Once the agency draws the maps, lawmakers vote on whether to accept them.

The entire process has three stages, if needed. A first set of maps is proposed, and lawmakers vote the entire set of maps — for legislative and congressional districts — up or down. If they approve that first set of maps, those boundaries go into effect for the next 10 years, starting with the next year’s statewide elections. (In this case, the November 2022 midterm elections.)

If lawmakers reject the first maps, the process resets and agency proposes another set of maps. Lawmakers again vote on those maps.

If lawmakers also reject the second maps, the process goes to a third stage. Lawmakers must accept those final maps, but they also have the ability to make their own amendments to the boundaries. This is where Iowa’s process could, theoretically, become partisan — especially if one political party pulls all the levers of state government, as Republicans currently do.

Why a special session?

The redistricting process typically takes place during a normal legislative session, which in Iowa runs from January through roughly April or May. But this year’s redistricting process was postponed across the country because federal census results were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Iowa lawmakers had to get special clearance from the Iowa Supreme Court to continue with the usual redistricting process because the delay in census data pushed the process past a deadline established in the Iowa Constitution.

How long will it take?

It’s anybody’s guess. If the Republican majorities in the Iowa House and Iowa Senate have decided they plan to approve this first set of maps, it may not take very long at all. That should not take more than one day’s worth of work, and both House Speaker Pat Grassley and Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver have said they hope for a brief session. But there is no guarantee. If lawmakers are deadlocked on whether to approve the first round of maps, or if members convince their leaders to also consider other, unrelated legislation, the special session could take longer.