[EL] Redistricting News from Kentucky

[Gerard York]

-----Original Message-----

From: Josh Douglas
Sent: 19 Jan 2012 19:22:01 GMT
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] Redistricting News from Kentucky

There's been some interesting redistricting news out of Kentucky today.
The state Senate adopted its new redistricting map, with some odd changes.
Under an informal agreement with the state House, each House will agree to
the other side's redistricting, so this will take effect in a matter of
days.

What the Senate did was shift various districts around the state.  However,
the legislation has each current senator follow their district -- even to
another part of the state.

For example, Kathy Stein currently represents Lexington in the 13th
District.  Her term is up at the end of the year, and she filed to run for
re-election in the 13th District.  But now where she lives is going to
become the 4th District.  The 13th District is being moved to a different
part of the state.  But, for the rest of her term, she will still
"represent" the (new) 13th District, even though it's in an entirely
different region.  The senator from the 4th District in Western Kentucky
will now represent Lexington, and he's not up for reelection until 2014.
So if Stein wants to keep representing the 13th District she'll have to
move.  Otherwise, she'll be out of office for two years and then can run in
the new 4th District.  And a Senator who lives over an hour way from the
(new) 4th District will now represent voters in Lexington until 2014.

Obviously, there were partisan reasons for these moves.  But I haven't
heard of other states that have the incumbents move with their numbered
districts.  It would seem to present some kind of right-to-vote problem,
because voters did not actually vote for the representative who now
represents them.  There could also be an equal protection concern:  voters
in Lexington were supposed to vote for their Senator in 2012, but now,
because they are being represented by the prior 4th District Senator, they
will not vote again until 2014.

Is anyone aware of other states that have this kind of process?

The local paper's coverage of this is here:
http://www.kentucky.com/2012/01/19/2033524/plan-would-redistrict-lexingtons.html#storylink=omni_popular#wgt=pop

Josh

--
Joshua A. Douglas
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Kentucky College of Law
620 S. Limestone
Lexington, KY 40506
(859) 257-4935
joshuadouglas at uky.edu
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