Redistricting is right around the corner in Kentucky. How might your district change?
With the 2022 General Assembly days away, the Kentucky state legislature has a lot on its plate.
Along with questions about how to spend the historic state budget surplus, public health policy in light of the rise of a new COVID-19 variant, tax reform and other issues, redrawing the state’s legislative districts will be a major topic that comes with a timestamp.
The maps ultimately passed by the legislature will dictate the candidate pool for races in the next 10 years or more, as redistricting is only required after the completion of the decennial U.S. Census. And they need to be in effect for the 2022 elections.
Which state legislative districts must change?
Generally speaking, a large number of state House and Senate districts in Eastern Kentucky will have to expand to increase their population. In all likelihood, that will mean fewer districts in the region. Population has dwindled greatly in districts like Bell and Harlan Counties’ House District 87 and Southeast Kentucky’s Senate District 30. Those districts have the biggest population deficits in the state.
Meanwhile, districts in Central and Northern Kentucky as well as Louisville’s outskirts and Bowling Green, have seen population booms that outpaced growth in the state and nation from 2010 to 2020. Boone County’s House District 60, according to the Kentucky State Data Center, is the most populous of any House seat in the commonwealth, with 56,575 people. The most populated Senate district is also there, with nearly 136,000 people in Senate District 11.
The population window for state Senate seats is 118,000 +/- 5%, according to Republican leaders in the legislature. That means Senate seats can be drawn to include anywhere from 112,000 to 124,000 people.
For state House seats, the window is 45,000 +/- 5%, so house seats need to be drawn to include more than 42,750 and fewer than 47,250 people.
But just because an existing district fits in that range doesn’t mean it won’t get redrawn. Redistricting does not occur in a vacuum. When one district needs to contract or expand, it creates a domino effect that oftentimes involves adjacent districts.
At a news conference held in late November, Senate Majority Whip Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, said population constraints and keeping counties whole when possible are the only two legal obligations lawmakers must consider when drawing the maps.
How will U.S. Congressional districts change?
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “each congressional district is to be as equal in population to all other congressional districts in a state as practicable.”
According to the Kentucky State Data Center, the number that all districts should strive to reach is around 751,000.
All of Kentucky’s districts, with the exception of the 3rd Congressional District in Louisville, which is 0.8% over that mark, are either much larger or smaller than 751,000. The 1st and 5th Districts, on opposite ends of the state, are both in need of significant population expansion. They are represented by Republicans James Comer and Hal Rogers, respectively. Meanwhile, the three Central, Northern and near-West districts occupied by Republicans Andy Barr, Thomas Massie and Brett Guthrie will likely have to shrink their population.
When will redistricting happen and when will candidates have to file?
The ship has sailed on redistricting in 2021. After mention of a possible special session this year, Republicans and Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear — who has the power to call a special session — appeared to reach an impasse on the terms for holding one.
Beshear insisted on seeing “a plan” before calling a session on the matter. Republicans said they would not go to Beshear to seek approval and insisted that he should call one anyway.
A majority of states have already passed new maps for their state and national legislative delegations, and even more are further ahead of Kentucky in the process, according to the data-focused website FiveThirtyEight — though several are bogged down in lawsuits.
So redistricting will have to take place during the 2022 General Assembly, which starts Jan. 4, and in advance of the May 2022 primary elections.
Republicans are expected to move back the Jan. 7 filing deadline for candidates. According to Tres Watson, a former spokesman for the Republican Party of Kentucky, legislators are expected to expedite the process and get a bill pushing back the filing deadline passed as soon as the session begins on Jan. 4.
Angela Billings, spokesman for Senate Majority Leadership, said the intention is for the deadline to be extended before the end of day on Jan. 7.
Still, Gov. Andy Beshear could decide to sit on the deadline bill or veto it.
When asked if the governor would sign such legislation, spokeswoman Crystal Staley said Beshear’s office “cannot comment on legislation that does not yet exist.”
Al Cross, a journalist and longtime state political observer, said delaying the bill is an option for Beshear, but not one that he thinks would be in the governor’s best interest.
“He could really monkey with them, but I don’t think it’s in his interest to monkey with them,” Cross said. “It’d just create more bad blood and the likelihood that (the Republicans) will take it out on him. And Democrats need time to recruit.”
As for the bill that redraws the districts, Cross said he would expect Beshear to delay its passage as long as possible to give Democrats more time to recruit for races dictated by maps yet unfamiliar to them.
Who controls redistricting?
Republicans hold veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature. If their caucuses stay together, they would have complete control over approval of new legislative maps.
The majorities are tasked with drawing the maps, and have yet to release any proposed maps.
Most of the discussion regarding the maps has taken place behind closed doors, to the chagrin of the Kentucky League of Women Voters and some who follow the process.
“I think the Republicans are doing democracy a disservice by doing this behind closed doors,” said Josh Douglas, an election law professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law. “Unfortunately, the public is not going to have much time to weigh in on these maps.”
The Kentucky League of Women Voters went so far as to hold their own listening sessions and propose their own maps.
“It’s not complicated,” Fran Wagner, President of the Kentucky League of Women Voters, wrote in a Herald-Leader op-ed. “It just depends on whether legislators want to share their knowledge with the citizens they serve.”
What about the League of Women Voters’ map?
The League of Women Voters say in their proposed map that they only took into consideration the following factors: “seeking compact districts, keeping county seats intact when possible, and ignoring how our map choices may affect incumbent office-holder(s).”
The league’s proposed map draws the home counties of four of the state’s six congressional members out of their districts. Although representatives are technically able to run for congress outside of the district in which they live, such disregard for the existing officeholders helps make the map a political nonstarter, according to Watson.
“The League of Women Voters has almost zero influence with the majority of this General Assembly,” Watson said. “Their map does not respect the traditional lines from the last three to four decades and it has almost no chance of even being discussed in committee.”
How would maps potentially get challenged in the courts?
The last post-census maps were successfully challenged.
Rep. Joseph Fischer, R-Ft. Thomas, was a plaintiff in a 2012 lawsuit filed in Franklin Circuit Court. His attorney at the time was Jason Nemes, now a Republican representing Jefferson and Oldham Counties. The suit pointed out that a Northern Kentucky district was drawn with too many people in it.
As a result of the challenge, the maps were redrawn in 2013. Fischer also sued over redistricting in the ‘90s and is now running for the Kentucky Supreme Court’s Sixth District, which covers the state’s northern region, against incumbent Michelle Keller.
But rules regarding challenges to redistricting have changed his and others’ lawsuits.
In 2019, the Republican-controlled legislature passed a bill that shifts the judicial venue for such challenges.
Now, any challenge will be brought before a panel of three current or retired circuit judges picked at random by the Kentucky Supreme Court Chief justice. Per the bill, that three-judge panel would have exclusive jurisdiction over “all matters related to redistricting” once a first challenge is filed.
Panel decisions would come down to a majority vote and their rulings would be appealable.
