The Washington State Redistricting Commission outlined a plan Wednesday that would place the state’s new 10th district in Thurston, Pierce and Mason counties and move U.S. Rep. Adam Smith’s 9th district away from the military-voter base he’s grown close to.
Tim Ceis, a Democrat on the commission who helped craft the draft congressional plan with Republican Slade Gorton, called it a fair and equitable map. It was made public just five days before the Jan. 1 deadline for completing the plan for the 10 congressional and 49 state legislative districts.
Ceis and Gorton said they believe their proposal would retain Washington Democrats’ current 5-4 edge over Republicans for seats in the U.S. House – while leaving lame-duck U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee’s heavily reconfigured 1st district as a new battleground that already has drawn nearly 10 candidates.
The plan also would create the state’s first majority-minority district, meaning it would have a majority of voters who are people of color. The newly shaped 9th district would range from northeast Tacoma to Renton and Bellevue.
“We are pleased commissioners have created what would be Washington’s first minority-majority district,’’ said Cherry Cayabyab of the Win Win Network and the Fair Representation Coalition, which had organized voters to testify in favor of a such majority-minority district. But Cayabyab said it is “just barely” majority-minority – 50.33 percent, according to commission data.
The bipartisan congressional plan needs one more vote to pass the commission and be sent to the Legislature, which can make only minor adjustments if it gets a supermajority vote to do so by mid-March.
Other features of the plan:
- It would preserve an urban anchor in Tacoma for Rep. Norm Dicks’ sprawling 6th district, which also takes in the Olympic Peninsula.
- It would send part of Rep. Dave Reichert’s 8th district over the Cascades into Eastern Washington to include Chelan and Kittitas counties.
- It would pull Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler’s 3rd district out of Olympia, leaving it to cover only a southernmost edge of Thurston County. It also would make the 3rd more solidly Republican.
- The 1st district, which Inslee is leaving to run for governor, would range from east of Everett and the north Lake Washington suburbs through east Snohomish, east Skagit and east Whatcom counties to Canada. Nearly 10 candidates appear to be in the running there.
- Rep. Rick Larsen’s 2nd district would be rerouted to run along Puget Sound from Mountlake Terrace to Bellingham and include the San Juan Islands. It would become more favorable to Democrats.
- The new 9th district would take in the northeast outskirts of Tacoma and run north on both sides of lower Lake Washington, including Renton, Tukwila, Newcastle and Bellevue.
Under, the changes in the 9th, Smith would lose Lacey, Lakewood and Pierce County areas near Joint Base Lewis-McChord. But the eight-term Democrat, who has assumed more House authority over defense issues, wasn’t letting on to any disappointment.
“I am very pleased the new 9th Congressional District includes my hometown of SeaTac and much of the south sound region which I have represented as a state senator and a congressman. I’m excited to run in this very diverse district,” Smith said in a statement posted to his re-election site.
Wednesday’s news also set off a rush of candidate announcements in the 10th – although most of them were expected.
The first three announced candidates were Democrat Denny Heck of Olympia, who lost to a Republican in the 3rd district last year; Republican Dick Muri of Steilacoom, who lost to Smith in the 9th last year; and Republican Stan Flemming, a physician and former mayor of University Place.
Republican James Postma of Steilacoom, who lost two former runs in the 9th and was seeking a rematch against Smith in the 9th, said he is considering a change in his federal registration to run in the 10th.
Heck and Muri were known to be eyeing the 10th. Flemming’s announcement was rumored.
Heck is an entrepreneur with name familiarity in the South Sound earned as a state legislator in the 1980s and later as co-founder of the TVW news network. Heck said his campaign will focus on job creation.
Flemming also listed jobs as a top campaign priority.
The location of the 10th had been a source of much speculation all year as the four partisan, voting members of the Redistricting Commission worked to meet the Jan. 1 deadline for drawing boundaries that equalize population in each district after the 2011 Census.
The draft needs one other vote from either Democrat Dean Foster of Olympia or Republican Tom Huff. Foster had proposed putting the 10th district in Thurston County.
As outlined by Ceis and Gorton, the new 10th would place most of Thurston County in a single district – the 10th, although it would leave a thin edge of south Thurston in the 3rd. Since 2002, Thurston has been split in two districts, the 9th and 3rd.
The 10th would be tilted toward Democrats, based on election data from 2010 and 2008 released by the Redistricting Commission. In fact, the area in the proposed 10th voted an average 52.7 percent in favor of Democrats in three sample races – U.S. Senate in 2010 and treasurer and governor in 2008.
Under the proposal, the 3rd would become more Republican by shifting out of Olympia in the north and into Eastern Washington along the Columbia River.
The four voting commissioners also are reworking maps for the 49 legislative districts, but that work hit an impasse Wednesday. Lura Powell, the non-voting chairman, said commissioners are expected to return at 10:30 a.m. today to see if draft plans made public by Foster and Huff can be reconciled.
A sticking point is how to design a majority-minority district or two in the Yakima area, where Latino voters could emerge as a majority by themselves.
Huff said Foster’s decision to stop negotiating and go public with his map was unfair and part of a script from Democrats. But Foster said their negotiations were “going backward” and that Huff had proposed spreading the 15th district near Yakima over six counties.
Brad Shannon: 360-753-1688
bshannon@theolympian.com
www.theolympian.com/politicsblog
Map of the proposed new districts
Current congressional districts
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