One day down, and no new legislative districts

@SoDakCampaigns

I’m thinking the legislative map is going to be redrawn by the Supreme Court at this point, if the news story in the Argus provides any clues:

The Senate’s preferred map, known as Blackbird 2.0, aims to make districts more compact while more clearly defining urban and rural areas of the state, supporters say. But House members leading the opposition to the Senate’s map say it intentionally pits conservatives who currently hold office against one another in the 2022 election and beyond.

And..

Schoenbeck said he’s still hopeful a compromise can be reached, but the decision was made to adjourn for the day after waiting hours for the House to schedule a time and place to convene a conference committee composed of three representatives and three senators.

House Republicans were caucusing in secret as of 9 p.m

Read it all here.

If the House won’t schedule a conference committee to iron out map differences, it really leaves the whole process dead in the water.

We’ll see whether today brings compromise or dysfunction. But either way, it’s all moving forward.

3 thoughts on “One day down, and no new legislative districts”

  1. An Independent Commission – free of the self-serving gerrymandering and political in-fighting we’re seeing right now – is the only way to go. It has worked for years in Sioux Falls. The city council gets this new map tonight – on time and without controversy: https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2021/10/28/sioux-falls-city-council-see-redistricting-plan-next-month/6183553001/?fbclid=IwAR0a_s01-VYoDogEerzElmIo6O903-TqWPPk1kBjkP1xIwA5oAIiVLpN6TM

    1. And this is an inherently silly belief. We had a chance to do this before. Voters declined to do so.

      We don’t need more government to replace the mechanism in place when legislators can’t agree on a map.

  2. If the Supreme Court ends up doing the redistricting, it could drift toward becoming the norm whenever you have House and Senate leadership that do not particularly care for one another.

    It is almost enough to make one long for the days when there were not term limits. There was more a sense on institutional memory running through the Legislature and willingness to make deals.

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