Senate begins redistricting work

CHEYENNE — On Monday, the Wyoming Senate began working a statewide redistricting plan, a process that is federally mandated following the decennial census, and entered into similar discussions to those had in the House of Representatives during the first week of the legislative session.
House Bill 100, “Redistricting of the legislature,” passed through the Committee of the Whole in the Senate and will face two more readings on the floor. The Senate approved three amendments to the plan Monday. 
The first would move two small communities in rural northeastern Wyoming into Campbell County so the region will fall within the standard population deviation of 5%, although representatives for that area have argued that Arvada and Clearmont are willing to be “underrepresented” to remain with their voting blocks in Sheridan and Johnson counties.
The second amendment primarily concerned district lines within the city of Cheyenne and was put forth by the Laramie County Clerk, and the third similarly concerned regions of Torrington and was put forward by the Goshen County Clerk.
Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, explained that the changes in the Cheyenne amendment were to:

Move block 6595 in House District 43, southeastern corner of Avenue C and East College, which has zero population;

Correct a city pocket that was drawn into a county area in census block 28865 at Fox Farm and West Jefferson roads.

Adjust the country club area from House District 42 to House District 8 because it is in the city of Cheyenne.

“These are just minor adjustments,” Nethercott said.
Sen. Lynn Hutchings, R-Cheyenne, expressed concern over how far east her district lines had been drawn in the plan.
“My concern is, I am so far away from these people,” Hutchings said. “Fifteen, 20 miles may not seem like a big deal to others … but why would you take the senator that is farthest north in the county and take them to (the eastern) area that is almost to Albin?”
Nethercott said the particular amendment the Senate was discussing at the time, which encompassed Laramie County Clerk “fix it” changes, did not affect the way Senate District 5 line, where Hutchings resides, was redrawn. 
“The bill is what creates the lines as identified by Sen. Hutchings,” Nethercott said. “Laramie County has gone through more change than any other county in the state. For example, I have lost an entire House district. This is not unique.”
For months leading up to the legislative session, members of the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee debated how to redraw district lines that outline the areas from which the people of Wyoming elect their legislators. People in rural places that lost population in the 2020 census, like Carbon and Sweetwater counties, told the committee they did not want to lose representation. Urban areas that grew, like Cheyenne, could have gone from 10 representatives to 11, but only needed somewhere between those numbers to fall into the allowable 5% standard deviation.
People don’t come in half a percentages, so then began the process of determining what counties would share representation with what other counties.
Ultimately, the Corporations Committee decided to move forward with a plan that would increase the size of the Legislature from 60 to 62 representatives and from 30 to 31 senators, arguing that it would create new districts such that no single area lost representation.
Regarding the Arvada and Clearmont region, Sen. Dave Kinskey, R-Sheridan, argued that the 62-31 plan was adopted as the Corporations Committee’s preferred option late in the process, undoing work done at the county level that would have kept the rural area within the district its residents preferred.
“They do not want to be moved to Campbell County,” Kinskey said. “We spent a lot of time in our district working on 60-30. We came up with and submitted a plan that was in deviation, and when the move was made to go to 62-31, we were handed something that had us out of deviation.”
To correct that, those communities were moved to a district within Campbell County. The House approved an amendment made by Rep. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, to move those communities back to Sheridan and Johnson counties in the first week of the session. On Monday, the Senate again reversed that decision in a 16-12 vote.
Later, Sen. Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, said he was not in favor of the 62-31 plan. He said he would likely make an amendment on second reading to change to a 60-30 plan, as is included in what Sen. Charles Scott, R-Casper, has called his “backup” bill.
“Quite frankly, I do not support the 62-31 (plan). I never have,” Biteman said. “It came out of nowhere, and our region plan, I thought, was right on the money."

Scott said he also favors his own plan because it “did not increase the size of the Legislature.” He said his bill essentially had “frozen in time” the Corporations Committee’s plan as it was in mid-December, before the committee moved toward increasing the size of the Legislature. He also said that it is also within deviation.
But Sen. Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, said the Scott plan would harm several hundred residents in his area, putting them into a voting block with which they had nothing in common. Nethercott said the 60-30 plan also caused strife within the Wind River Reservation, which has different redistricting rules.
Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, who is the co-chair of the Joint Corporations Committee, said all these discussions had been had in the Corporations Committee, and that a 60-30 plan just “did not fit” the state of Wyoming. The 62-31 plan, he said, is the “healthiest for the state of Wyoming.”
 
This story was published on March 1.