LUSK – The Joint Corporations Committee plan to have another meeting in December to discuss redistricting in order to finish the state map. 

The first half of the meeting on Thursday was meant to finish discussions on redistricting which had carried over from the day before. 

Although there was no consensus on a final state map, District 5 Representative Shelly Duncan was pleased with what the committee did get done. 

“I think it actually went quite well given the fact that everybody was doing things on their own and then have to come together and put all these individual puzzle pieces together to make one map, surprisingly there’s only a few problems,” Duncan said. “If you can get through the rhetoric and posturing in the end there was only a couple of real problematic areas that need to be solved.” 

The most debated areas included the Big Horn Basin region as geographical barriers prevent it from staying withing the 5% deviation of the population mean, and Region 6 (Campbell Crook and Weston) which is facing problems of accurately representing the different communities in the area. 

Region 7, which is where Goshen County is located in, could be affected by the changing lines of Region 6 as it could seek to share population with Niobrara and northern Goshen. 

More issues arose for Goshen County on Thursday when a statewide map by District 43 Representative Dan Zwonitzer featured southern Goshen connected with Laramie County. The map opposed all three proposals from Region 7 legislators and county clerks as the primary goal has always been to not share with Laramie County which is also known as Region 2. However, a second statewide map proposal by District 1 Senator Ogden Driskill used the preferred regional plan by the legislators of Region 7 but most of the regions were all outside of the deviation.

The committee decided to move forward with the first map and continue to make changes to it. Duncan said Zwonitzer’s map is a good starting point to allow to further change the district and region lines. 

“Even though it wasn’t what we necessarily submitted, and it wasn’t what our neighbors to the North necessarily submitted the rest of the state for the greater good it was always in the proper deviation,” Duncan said. 

Two crucial amendments were passed to the proposal which allows for Region 7 to be a little closer to the original regional proposals. The committee adopted an amendment to take southern Goshen County out of the district with part of Laramie County as well as an amendment to not confirm region lines for Region 6 and 7 until the next meeting. Duncan said Region 7 will not be able to rework its lines until the region to the North has settled its lines first. 

“We feel like we’re going to be able to go back to the table and try and negotiate something for all parties and we can’t do anything within our lines in Region 7 until Region 6 is resolved,” Duncan said. 

On Friday, Duncan reached out to her constituents and updated them on how the meeting went. Duncan said she has received support for the map overall and plans to stay prepared for any types of changes to the map in the future. 

“I just want to make sure that we have multiple maps and multiple options that everybody is okay with,” Duncan said. 

Duncan said the plan she will try to push will be the one presented by the county clerks which dissects Goshen County with a diagonal line North of Fort Laramie, Lingle, and Torrington to keep the municipalities with Southern Goshen and the northern part will stay in District 5. 

Throughout the entire process of redistricting, the focus has always been on the house districts since the lines tend to be more complicated and are nested within the senate district. At the last meeting however, discussion about which senators would have to run again in the middle of their term created another issue for the committee. 

The discussion ranged from accusations of legislators drawing lines to ensure they were in the same district, to moving away from nesting house districts within a senate district. 

Senator Charlie Scott of District 30 was one of the committee members who addressed the issue of the lack of finalized lines for the senate. 

Duncan said representatives have been working on the house lines because it is easier to figure out the senate from there. 

“The way we’re looking at it is you have all these 60 puzzle pieces and then you can combine two of your house members as a senate, whereas the senate [Scott’s] methodology is you got 30 senators and 30 puzzle pieces and you’re going to try to cut those puzzle pieces in half,” Duncan said. “For me that’s more difficult because then you got to draw lines between those senate puzzle pieces versus the lines are already drawn for the house you just have to add those two together. So, it’s really frustrating when you have two ideologies or two methodologies and they’re not meshing.” 

While there was no agreement on final lines for the statewide map, the next meeting could be the last step for the committee before the budget session in February. 

“I feel like this meeting can be done… I feel like the argument can be made that every single district can be within deviation,” Duncan said aside from the Big Horn Basin which may not need to be within deviation since they will be able to defend it in court. 

Some states are already facing legal battles over redistricting maps such as Texas due to misrepresenting minority areas. Duncan is confident they can defend all of the lines being drawn, especially in the Big Horn Basin.     

“We have an argument in justification for geographical limitations and issues of being out of deviation and we can argue that in court,” Duncan said.   

Committee members now have a week to work on line changes for their respective regions.

The next redistricting meeting will be Dec. 14 at 8:30 a.m. in Cheyenne.