The second redistricting plan is out and has some surprises.
- The LSA did not do what it did in the 2000s and use a different color for the district outlines in its second plan, because like in the 2010s it differentiated districts with background colors instead. I’m sure that precisely one person cares about this, and they’re writing this blog post.
- Like the first draft, and unlike the 2000s and 2010s, the 1st District starts at Lee County and works out from there. That’s the way it historically worked.
- The map has three Hubbell-Trump congressional districts, although it’s very close in the 3rd.
- Will Mariannette Miller-Meeks go house shopping in Batavia or will there be an incumbent-on-incumbent mud-filled gold mine for central Iowa TV? (In which case, maybe watch WOI, because Tegna is now fighting Dish in addition to Mediacom.)
- For the second time since adoption of nonpartisan redistricting, Tama County would be split between state House districts. Traer and Clutier wouldn’t have the same representative or senator. (That means that North Tama kind of gets two of each!)
- This would be the first time any part of Tama County — in this case about the northeast fifth, including Traer and Dysart — gets grouped with Cedar Falls in both state House and state Senate districts.
- The bulk of Tama County, including Clutier and Dinsdale, is assigned to House 53, which includes two present representatives: Dean Fisher and Dave Maxwell. (Maxwell’s farm is on IA 21 halfway between Thornburg and Deep River.)
- The rural-towns part of House 76 is Traer, Dysart, La Porte City, and Mount Auburn. The suburban (or suburban-ish) part is Hudson, Evansdale, Elk Run Heights, Gilbertville, and Washburn. It’s those cities and the urban part — Cedar Falls south of effectively a University Avenue-Main Street-Greenhill Road line, plus Waterloo southwest of the intersection of Ridgeway and Ansborough avenues — that comprise the bulk of the population.
- The current representative for the south Cedar Falls/Hudson district is Democrat Dave Williams. The companion House district is the rest of Cedar Falls, meaning Senate 38 will be the Cedar Falls/UNI district. Democrat Eric Giddens of Cedar Falls would be Traer and Dysart’s state senator.
- Senate 38 is one of a very tiny handful of mid-sized districts, neither sprawling that much nor entirely concentrated in a metro area. It’s also one of the extremely few politically competitive districts, according to this trio of tweets.
- The rest of Tama County is in a Senate district with Poweshiek, Grundy, Hardin, and the westernmost edge of Black Hawk counties. Republican Annette Sweeney of Alden would be their senator. This district is L-shaped because it forms the southwest portion of the 2nd Congressional District.
- The two Senate districts that jump congressional districts are 24 (Boone, Greene, Guthrie, northwest Dallas counties) and 33 (Jones and Jackson counties, and most of Dubuque County outside the city of Dubuque).
- 15 counties of the 4th Congressional District along the north and west borders make a self-contained unit of 10 House and 5 Senate districts.
- In the 1970s, the bulk of the Des Moines metro fit into 10 state House districts. In the 2020s, it will take 15.
- That Urbandale district (plus a fraction of unincorporated Webster Township to the east) remains unchanged.
- Waukee and the Dallas County part of Clive form their own House district.
- Robins’ city limits are outrageously absurd.
- Coralville is almost its own House district.
- Ankeny is its own Senate district (and Jack Whitver’s district).
- 18% of the population in the 1st District is in the 4 counties of the official Des Moines media market.