BOISE, Id – While Republican and Democratic officials have been picking names for a brand new Redistricting Commission, the old Commission has been working behind the scenes. Monday the Old Commissioners stepped forward and submitted a plan to redraw Idaho’s political boundaries. But it turns out the old Commission’s power ran out when its term of office did.
The Old Redistricting Commission was close to an agreement on a legislative and congressional map, before it failed to meet its September 6th deadline. Some on the Commission wanted to go back for a second bite at the apple, but the Secretary of State said Idaho law would not allow old commissioners to serve again. The first commission was disbanded.
Larry Grant “And I think that left a lot of unanswered questions in a lot of folks minds and I think they would have liked to have come back and negotiated some more and I think that’s one of the things that kept them working on it because they felt like they could come to an agreement.”
That’s Larry Grant, Chairman of the Idaho Democratic Party. The Old Commissioners came up with a compromise plan, for both the legislative and congressional maps. Grant and his Republican counterpart Norm Semanko took the compromise to the Secretary of State’s office Monday, to find out if it could be adopted. Turns out, it couldn’t. But Grant says that doesn’t mean the compromise should be dismissed.
Larry Grant “The previous commissioners are really now just private citizens submitting a map, but they did spend 90 days and they did work very hard and they continued to talk and they’re very knowledgeable about the state and the issues, I think that an agreement among those folks deserves some deference.”
The Old Commissioners will get a chance to recommend their compromise plan to the New Commissioners when the new panel is sworn in on Wednesday.
Copyright 2011 BSPR
