The BulleTin • Thursday, FeBruary 4, 2021 A13
Slain Capitol Police officer honored: ‘We will never forget’
BY MARY CLARE JALONICK
AND NOMAAN MERCHANT
The Associated Press
Andrew Harnik/AP
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks during a ceremony memo-
rializing U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, as an urn with his cremated re-
mains lies in honor Wednesday on a black-draped table at the center of the Capitol
Rotunda in Washington.
Redistricting
Continued from A1
Added to the mix is the like-
lihood that Oregon’s popula-
tion growth will give it a sixth
congressional seat, the bound-
aries for which would have to
be carved out of the current
five districts. Oregon last re-
ceived an additional congres-
sional seat in 1980.
Also at stake is $1.5 trillion
in federal aid that is sent to
states based on their census
numbers.
Oregon has 60 state House
districts and 30 Senate dis-
tricts. Each state Senate dis-
trict encompasses two House
districts within its boundaries.
The number of seats remains
the same, but the district lines
are adjusted to balance popu-
lations.
Under the state Constitu-
tion, the Legislature was sup-
posed to receive the data by
April 1 and had until it ad-
journed on July 1 to submit
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maps that would then go to
Gov. Kate Brown for approval.
If the maps are not submit-
ted by July 1, the redistricting
of legislative districts would be
done by the secretary of state,
while the congressional dis-
tricts would be drawn by a five-
judge panel.
Fagan reiterated Wednes-
day that she was preparing the
groundwork to draw the maps.
“The Oregon Constitution
is clear,” the secretary of state
said in a statement.
Fagan said the problem had
been looming for months as
the census missed earlier dead-
lines to provide basic infor-
mation on its once-a-decade
count of the nation’s popula-
tion.
“The U.S. Census Bureau
has been signaling the possibil-
ity of delays since last spring”
Fagan said. “We won’t be
caught off guard.”
Fagan said Kathy Wai had
joined the Secretary of State’s
Office this week as redistricting
WASHINGTON — Con-
gressional leaders paid trib-
ute Wednesday to slain U.S.
Capitol Police Officer Brian
Sicknick in the building he
died defending, promising
his family and his fellow of-
ficers that they will never
forget his sacrifice.
Sicknick died after an in-
surrectionist mob stormed
the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6,
interrupting the electoral
count after then-Presi-
dent Donald Trump urged
them to “fight like hell” to
overturn his defeat. The
U.S. Capitol Police said in
a statement that Sicknick,
who died the next day, was
injured “while physically
engaging with protesters,”
though the cause of his
death has not been deter-
mined.
administrator. Wai previously
was census justice director at
Oregon Futures Lab.
Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend,
a member of the Senate Re-
districting Committee said
Fagan’s announcement was a
surprise.
“I would say the secretary of
state is incredibly premature,”
Knopp said. “I think the idea
is to try to have the Legislature
do its constitutional duty. The
delay is because of COVID-19
and other things beyond our
control.”
Sen. Kathleen Taylor, D-Mil-
waukie, chair of the Senate
Redistricting Committee, said
lawmakers will continue to ex-
plore “all options.” It will meet
with state legal experts during
a hearing next week.
Taylor said leaders of the re-
districting committees in the
Senate and the House are ask-
ing legislative leadership to au-
thorize legal help to represent
the Legislature before the Ore-
gon Supreme Court.
Up To
House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi said Sicknick was a
patriot who will be remem-
bered by lawmakers each
day as they enter the Capitol.
“We will never forget,” she
promised his family, who at-
tended the ceremony.
The 42-year-old officer
was only the fifth person to
lie in honor in the Capitol
Rotunda, a designation for
those who are not elected
officials, judges or military
leaders. President Joe Biden
and Vice President Kamala
Harris, along with their
spouses, paid their respects
during two days of visitation
Tuesday and Wednesday, as
did members of Congress
and his fellow law enforce-
ment officers. Both Biden,
who visited Tuesday night,
and Harris on Wednesday
laid their hands on the urn
in remembrance.
After the ceremony, Sick-
Knopp said the lawmakers
would seek a preemptive judg-
ment from the court extending
the deadline for the Legisla-
ture to submit a redistricting
plan. If approved, the Legisla-
ture would hold a special ses-
sion for redistricting as early as
midsummer.
Knopp said neither the Leg-
islature nor Fagan may get
what they want. The census de-
lay could stretch past the Aug.
15 deadline for Fagan and the
judges panel to submit maps to
the committee.
“All the deadlines could
pass,” Knopp said. “We need a
plan in place.”
Members of the Senate com-
mittee floated possible options,
though all would require legal
opinions.
“There has been a discussion
in Oregon about using other
data,” Taylor said. “Attorneys
say that’s questionable since we
have always used census block
data.”
A forecast by Portland State
nick’s urn was taken out of
the building as hundreds of
his fellow officers lined the
Capitol’s east front. They
saluted his hearse as it de-
parted for Arlington Na-
tional Cemetery, where he
will be interred.
Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer, speaking at
the ceremony, talked of the
deep scars left by the assault.
“Let us all be a comfort
to those who continue to
recover from injuries, seen
and unseen, from the attack
on Jan. 6,” Schumer said.
He said Sicknick was the
“quiet rock” of his unit who
was “caught at the wrong
place at the wrong time, on
a day when peace was shat-
tered.”
Sicknick, of South River,
New Jersey, enlisted in the
National Guard six months
after graduating high school
in 1997, then deployed
University using preliminary,
unofficial data showed House
districts would likely grow
from the current 63,851 to
71,000, while Senate districts
would grow from 127,702 peo-
ple to 142,000 and each of the
congressional districts — in-
cluding the added sixth seat
— would have about 710,000
people.
“Oregon has grown very,
very quickly,” said Charles
Rynerson, a population re-
searcher at Portland State Uni-
versity.
Rynerson said Oregon’s pop-
ulation is estimated at just over
4.2 million, up from 3.86 mil-
lion in the 2010 census. The
preliminary U.S. Census num-
ber put the nation’s population
above 331 million, up from 309
million in 2010. Styles said fi-
nal figures could push the U.S.
population as high as 336 mil-
lion.
Rynerson said the greatest
rate of growth since the last
census was in the Bend area,
50% off
to Saudi Arabia and later
Kyrgyzstan. He joined the
Capitol Police in 2008. Like
many of his fellow officers,
he often worked security
in the Capitol itself and
was known to lawmakers,
staff and others who passed
through the building’s doors
each morning.
The day was full of sol-
emn ceremony and of re-
minders of the violence
that occurred a month ago.
Some of the evidence re-
mains visible, including
shattered windows and
dented wood doors.
“Four weeks ago, the Ro-
tunda was strewn with the
debris of an insurrectionist
mob,” Senate Republican
leader Mitch McConnell
said on the Senate floor
Wednesday morning. “To-
day, it is adorned in solemn
thanksgiving for the sacri-
fice of a hero.”
along with some eastern sub-
urbs of Portland.
The forecast singled out Sen-
ate District 27 — held by Knopp
— as one that will likely need a
major boundary overhaul.
House District 54, which in-
cludes Bend and is represented
by freshman Rep. Jason Knopf,
D-Bend, was also mentioned
as needing a major adjustment.
Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena,
said that the estimates were
enough to begin discussing
the rough outlines of districts
for 2022.
“We can be in the ballpark,”
he said. “You can figure out
where you have to expand and
contract.”
But Styles cautioned that the
data required for redistrict-
ing is a block-by-block count.
Federal and state laws are strict
about the the requirements for
district layouts. They also in-
clude key measures required
under the Civil Rights Act and
Voting Rights Act that are not
yet available.
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