Tomorrow: Washington State (Maybe, Probably) Gets a 10th Congressional District

Comments

"shift the national debate....."

riiiight.

cause while Washington is picking up a seat the republicans will see a net gain of 20 seats from the census overall.

so, yeah, this new seat and $4 bucks will get you a latte.....

on December 20, 2010 at 2:25 PM

May 2010 had 21 days of rain and only 4 days considered to be "sunny".

DOUG. on December 20, 2010 at 2:29 PM

@2: And how many has this month had?

Eli Sanders on December 20, 2010 at 3:30 PM Stranger Staff

@3: Zero. But that's irrelevant to your statement that May was sunny.

DOUG. on December 20, 2010 at 7:41 PM

I don't know if this is possible under the rules the redistricting commission is using, but I figured out a 10-CD map for Washington that created a new 10th district out of Thurston County, the Olympic Peninsula, and the northern 2/3 of Kitsap (including Bremerton).

That would fix the annoying configuration of the 1st district, which crosses Puget Sound. (Jay Inslee would be redistricted out of his own district, but he's running for governor anyway so that's no problem.) Then you have a more compact 3rd around Vancouver, a more compact 1st all in Snohomish plus King County north of the Seattle City limits, and a 6th district that is centered on Tacoma but includes Gig Harbor and south Kitsap.

The 8th stays where it is but loses most of the portion in rural Pierce County to be a mostly East King district. That puts Reichert into trouble. And there's a cross-mountain district (as there will be in any scenario with 10 districts), in this case the 2nd: After losing some of the developed SE corner of Snohomish to the 1st district, Chelan County and most of Okanogan. The 4th and 5th then shift borders a bit to split the remaining counties.

Unfortunately, I suspect mutual incumbent protection will preserve the existing gerrymandering instead of leaving us with some more logical districts.

Cascadian on December 20, 2010 at 10:36 PM