THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 2021
BAKER CITY HERALD — A5
STATE/NATION
Legislature begins 46-day race
to redistricting on Thursday
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
Eleven state lawmakers on Thursday,
Aug. 12, will begin a politically Hercu-
lean task with historically small odds of
success: Draw 96 new political districts
in 46 days that will be used beginning
with the 2022 election.
The six Democrats and fi ve Republi-
cans on the House and Senate redistrict-
ing committees are set to receive block-
by-block U.S. Census data chock full of
population and demographic changes
since the last map making 10 years ago.
The pandemic and politics led to
a six-month delay in delivery of the
information on population changes and
demographic shifts that is required to
draw maps meeting federal and state
laws.
It took an Oregon Supreme Court
ruling to give the Legislature the fi rst
shot at redistricting. But the justices
settled on a crushing timeline that
would require a special session of the
Legislature on Sept. 20 to ratify the
maps in time to have them delivered to
the court by Sept. 27.
What they come up with has even
the most seasoned politicians in Salem
scratching their heads.
“Nobody knows what their district’s
going to look like right now,” Senate
President Peter Courtney said last week.
“Some are going to be dramatically
changed, and some aren’t.”
The committees’ to-do list:
• Draw 60 House districts, each with
about 70,621 residents.
• Draw 30 Senate districts, each with
about 141,242 residents.
• Draw six congressional districts —
one more than now exist — each with
about 706,209 residents.
If successful, the lawmakers will cre-
ate the maps, win approval in the House
and Senate, and then get Gov. Kate
Brown to sign off on the plan.
That’s happened once in the past 110
years, in 2011. The rest of the time, the
Legislature couldn’t agree, the governor
would reject the lawmakers’ plans, or
court challenges would lead to revisions.
Plans for a “road trip” of hearings to
present a preliminary plan to the public
are now shaky amid a new wave of
COVID-19 cases. The committees could
return to the earlier format of taking
virtual and written testimony.
While the district fi nal lines likely
won’t be seen until well into the autumn,
the initial raw data shows major shifts
in the political landscape.
Oregon received a new congressional
seat by outpacing the nation in growth.
The 2020 population is 4,237,256, re-
fl ecting 10.7% growth since 2010, above
the 7.4% national average.
But the growth has not been evenly
spread across the state. Traditional
Republican strongholds in eastern and
southwestern Oregon have seen below
state average increases.
The biggest bounce has been in the
Bend area, with population growth
of about 25% since 2010 — the city
now has more than 100,000 people.
Democrats fl ipped the state house seat
representing most of the city in 2020.
Deschutes County gave a majority of its
presidential vote to Democrat Joe Biden
over then-President Donald Trump.
The other big growth area was a
suburban arc around Portland stretch-
ing from Wilsonville to Hillsboro, then
curving over northern Portland before
dropping southeast into Clackamas
County. All the current representatives
in those areas are Democrats.
House Minority Leader Christine
Drazan, R-Canby, fi red a warning fl are
to GOP supporters, noting Democrats
control all the levers of power on
redistricting, from the Legislature to the
governor and secretary of state, and not-
ing a majority of the Oregon Supreme
Court was appointed by Democrats.
Drazan recently suggested that
partisanship could be the result of a map
favoring Democrats, instead of popula-
tion shifts.
“We are at high risk of gerrymander-
ing,” Drazan said. “They have the power,
but we’ll be able to question how it is
done.”
Drazan will wield an unusually large
amount of sway due to a deal she struck
during the 2021 session with House
Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland to end
parliamentary moves that delayed the
pace of votes on Democrats’ agenda,
Kotek appointed Drazan to the House
Redistricting Committee, given party
parity with three Democrats and three
Republicans.
No similar plan was worked out with
the Senate, leaving it with a committee
of three Democrats and two Republicans.
How the two panels will be inte-
grated when it comes time to debate and
vote on a plan is still in the works.
Democrats thought with large ma-
jorities in both chambers and Brown’s
support, they had a good chance of
getting new maps in place for the 2022
election.
If the Legislature stalls on a plan or
it is rejected by Brown, the legislative
mapmaking goes to Secretary of State
Shemia Fagan, while congressional
maps would be drawn by a fi ve-judge
panel created to do the job.
If Fagan’s or the judges’ maps are
found wanting under legal review, the
Oregon Supreme Court would draw the
lines itself.
The Oregon Supreme Court has set
Feb. 7, 2022, as the latest date for maps
to be fi nalized, including any lawsuits or
other legal action.
With redistricting settled by then,
potential candidates would have one
month until the March 8, 2022, deadline
to fi le for the May 17 primary.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo
resigns over sexual
harassment allegations
By MARINA VILLENEUVE
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Gov.
Andrew Cuomo announced
his resignation Tuesday,
Aug. 10, over a barrage of
sexual harassment allega-
tions in a fall from grace
a year after he was widely
hailed nationally for his
detailed daily briefi ngs and
leadership during some
of the darkest days of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
By turns defi ant and
chastened, the 63-year-old
Democrat emphatically
denied intentionally mis-
treating women and called
the pressure for his ouster
politically motivated. But
he said that fi ghting back
in this “too hot” political cli-
mate would subject the state
to months of turmoil.
“The best way I can help
now is if I step aside and
let government get back to
governing,” Cuomo said in a
televised address.
The third-term governor’s
resignation, which will take
effect in two weeks, was an-
nounced as momentum built
in the Legislature to remove
him by impeachment and
after nearly the entire
Democratic establishment
had turned against him,
with President Joe Biden
joining those calling on him
to resign.
The decision came a week
after New York’s attorney
general released the results
of an investigation that
found Cuomo sexually ha-
rassed at least 11 women.
Richard Drew/Associated Press
New York Gov. Andrew
Cuomo speaks during a
news conference at New
York’s Yankee Stadium,
Monday, July 26, 2021.
Investigators said he sub-
jected women to unwanted
kisses; groped their breasts
or buttocks or otherwise
touched them inappropri-
ately; made insinuating re-
marks about their looks and
their sex lives; and created a
work environment “rife with
fear and intimidation.”
At the same time, Cuomo
was under fi re over the dis-
covery that his administra-
tion had concealed thousands
of COVID-19 deaths among
nursing home patients.
Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a
62-year-old Democrat and
former member of Congress
from the Buffalo area, will
become the state’s 57th
governor and the fi rst
woman to hold the post.
She said Cuomo’s resigna-
tion was “the right thing to
do and in the best interest
of New Yorkers.”
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