OK, kids, let’s see if you can answer this question. Where was the largest proportion of population growth during the past decade? If you said lower NCC, you’d be correct. The area around Middletown and its environs have exploded.
No serious redistricting plan could avoid this development, yet somehow the House Rethug redistricting plan manages to reapportion without even providing one new district in this area, let alone the two that the population shift calls for.
Your one-stop shop for this circus can be found here.
How do they do this? They only merge twice throughout the state. Under the Rethug plan, Helene Keeley loses her seat (3rd RD) and is put in a district with Dennis P. Williams (1st RD, ain’t happening), and Lavelle (11) puts himself in a district with Dennis E. Williams (10) by adding the most R portion of Williams’ district to Lavelle’s most R portion. None of the R’s isolated along the northwest corner of the state are cut. Repeat, none. Got that? One D district gone, 1 D district likely gone. Oh, and for Lavelle to get his numbers, he has to go east of Concord Pike. Oh, and if gerrymandering is your concern, just look at the contortions required for Debbie Hudson to get her district. Click on RD 12 E and RD 12 W. A district so big it takes two maps to show it.
Where do the new districts go? One, as you would expect, goes along coastal Sussex. That makes sense. The other is a newly-created district in, wait for it, rural western Kent County. Really. From the Rethug press release:
The 3rd Representative District, currently represented by State Rep. Helene Keeley (D-Wilmington South), would be moved to western rural Kent County, running from Cheswold, south and west, to an area near Felton.
That is not a serious proposal. Southern New Castle County gets no new districts, but western Kent County does? Please. Does Sigler live there?
One element is notable for its absence from the R plan. An element that Wayne Smith notoriously exploited to the R’s advantage in 2000. Go here, scroll down, and click on ‘Demographic Data for All Districts’. Wouldn’t you consider the actual population of each district to be at least of teensy-weensy importance? As I’ve written about redistricting numerous times, there’s a big difference between the minimum population required, and the maximum population allowable, for each district. Wonder why the House R’s chose not to share this portion of the data. You actually have to make a point of excluding it, and that’s what they did.
This may be about the best that pious bloviator Greg Lavelle and his henchpersons can construct to minimize damage to the R’s. As an exercise, his caucus may have found it useful.
As a serious plan…take one last look at District 12 and then get back to me.
It’s a joke.