South Dakota’s decennial redistricting process seems to have been proceeding in an orderly and cordial manner to this point. Mostly.
“Shady politics?” Did I say it was cordial?
District 16 State Representative Kevin Jensen has been on facebook in recent weeks loudly protesting legislative redistricting, and going so far to attack others and refer to the process as shady politics. Why? Because of how it affects his legislative district, for one.
If you read into the comment section of Jensen’s public Facebook post, Jensen characterizes it as some evil plan to do away with conservative incumbents…
…and according to him, his district – District 16 – is ‘perfect’ the way it is. And all this shady political redistricting talk is being driven by some of those in Senate Leadership.
The problem with Jensen’s demands to preserve his existing District, is that there is more to South Dakota than his district. And his argument that it pits “4 conservative incumbent representatives and at least one new candidate who has announced, and 2 incumbent senators against each other in the primary” is beyond ridiculous.
I was floored when I read him saying we’re now supposed to worry about “at least one new candidate who has announced.” We supposedly have to base the state’s legislative map for the next decade in part on someone who has yet to collect 1 signature?
Never mind the fact that we also somehow can’t have candidates who might have to run against each other in the primary?
I’m sure many legislators would like to keep things exactly the way they are, as well as set them up for their friends who just announced for office, but that part is not in the state constitution which dictates “Legislative districts shall consist of compact, contiguous territory and shall have population as nearly equal as is practicable, based on the last preceding federal census.”
There will be candidates who plan on running who have to shift gears because things change, and there will be existing officeholders who have to run against each other. Try not to be shocked, but legislators who are currently in office will run against other legislators who are currently in office. It’s a called a primary election. And from what I hear, we have a few of those.
Some of this may come to a head tonight at the Sioux Falls legislative redistricting meeting tonight at 6 o’clock at the HUB Building at Southeast Technical College (HUB303, 2001 N. Career Avenue) in Sioux Falls, and you never know, it could end up being a little heated. You can find the agenda here.
Stay tuned, because there is more definitely coming on this.