Former Dem legislator wants to rewrite legislative redistricting in state constitution

Apparently Dan Ahlers isn’t liking how he fared the last time at the ballot box. Because he’s sending in a ballot measure proposal to rewrite the South Dakota State Constitution’s language to create a new redistricting process, which will redistrict primarily ….via a grid-like pattern across the state?

Dan Ahlers redistricting Amendment by Pat Powers on Scribd

What idiotic left-coast Democrat group came up with this pile of nonsense?  It seems to me that Ahler’s “grid plan” will create more counties that are split than we already have during the census based redistricting.

In fact, it also puts those census blocks, which are a creation of the US census bureau, into the state constitution as a criteria for redistricting. How exactly do you put something that’s “delineated by the U.S. Census Bureau once every ten years” into a constitution?

On top of that, it also weirdly places “maintaining the same or similar socio-economic areas to the extent practicable.”  So.. Dan wants to keep rich people in one district, and poor people in another?

Nevermind the standards that courts decide to determine South Dakota’s districts for South Dakota’s Indian Reservations – they’ve changed how they view how those districts are to be structured in the past – and who’s to say they might not change direction in the future?

Dan might be the man proposing a plan. But it’s a bad one, and one that no one is asking for. Especially when it comes to a re-write of the state constitution.

3 thoughts on “Former Dem legislator wants to rewrite legislative redistricting in state constitution”

  1. Democrats how many times will you push the same or similar BS?

    Amendment T was defeated in 2016 and you could not get enough signature in 2018…

    There should be an amendment to say they have to take a cycle off after an unsuccessful attempt

  2. Crazily, that wouldn’t help them. They can only hope to win SIoux Falls area districts where there will be new districts. Out state is getting redder and that won’t change

    1. Agreed. The shading of the state has moved redder and redder as nationally the Democrats have given up on appealing to the center.

      That being said, Sioux Falls is becoming more and more of a major metro area in it’s voting behaviors, and what works in Harding County isn’t going to necessarily appeal to urban voters – and the Sioux Falls metro area is going to require special attention.

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