The state’s Redistricting Commission is supposed to release later today the different commissioners’ ideas for redistricting the state, but former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton has his out there already. We’ll get to the impact here in a minute. To start, though, he puts the new 10th Congressional District along the state’s norther border from the San Juans to Okanagan.
If Gorton’s proposal were to hold, all of Kitsap County would be in the Sixth Congressional District. AP has seen the other proposals but hasn’t gone into much detail about what would happen here.
Legislatively Gorton’s changes would be significant. The 23rd District would lose Silverdale, but pick up downtown Bremerton and Port Townsend. I suspect Democrats will balk bigtime at that idea, because it creates a strong Democratic district that yes, pretty much guarantees James Olsen will never win a legislative election, but potentially makes the 35th and 26th Legislative Districts more conservative. That could present steeper challenges for Larry Seaquist in the 26th, but even more for Kathy Haigh in the 35th. Haigh’s win in 2010 was razor thin as it was.
I know politics are not supposed to play into the conversation, but don’t expect Democrats to lay down for Gorton’s idea.
When the others come out I’ll see if I can do what I’m doing here, which is laying out a comparative map like you see below.
Would that put all of Bremerton into one legislative district instead of three?
Looking at all three plans in a separate post, I think Bremerton continues to have multiple legislators, but it may be down to two districts instead of three.
Steven Gardner
Kitsap Caucus