By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Goodbye, Kurt Schrader. Hello, Peter DeFazio.
Goodbye Boomer Wright. Hello Dave Gomberg.
Well, in January 2023 most likely.
That’s what the final redrawing this week of congressional and state legislative maps means for Lincoln County and the Yachats area.
Because of its population growth, Oregon was one of six states to get an additional – its sixth — congressional district this year, with Texas getting two. Seven states lost seats.
This was only the third time in the last 40 years that Oregon legislators approved a new congressional map — they did so in 1981, after Oregon gained a fifth seat, and in 2011 to adjust for population growth. It was the third time in 110 years for a new legislative map, after they did it in 1911 and 2011.
Lincoln County has been in the Fifth Congressional District since 1981 and represented by Schrader since his election in 2009.
But to balance population and create a sixth district, after weeks of hearings and a special session that started last week, Oregon legislators Monday approved moving Lincoln County from Schrader’s congressional district and into DeFazio’s, while also adjusting other boundaries of their districts to create the sixth district and balance population (not voters) at 706,200 people in each of the six.
Schrader’s district now stretches from Clackamas County in the north, south through the eastern portions of Marion County and over the Cascades to include Bend and Deschutes County.
The new congressional district was created in the upper Willamette Valley, stretching from Polk County in the south, through Salem and parts of Marion County to the southwest suburbs of Portland.
In the Fourth Congressional District, Lincoln County joins Benton, Lane, Coos, Curry and parts of Douglas counties.
DeFazio, 74, is a progressive Democrat whose home is in Springfield and is Oregon’s longest serving House member, first elected in 1986. He is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over the nation’s highways, public transit, rail systems, airports, pipelines, and seaports, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, and other agencies.
Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, told YachatsNews on Tuesday that Lincoln County officials will need to reach out soon to DeFazio to bring him up to speed on local issues.
“I hope he is in position to help with our infrastructure issues such as dams and water,” Gomberg said.
The new congressional and legislative boundaries will be used for the November 2022 elections and take effect in January 2023.
Legislative boundaries move
There were also some big adjustments in the boundaries of Oregon House District 10, which is represented by Gomberg and makes up half of Senate District 5, represented by Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City.
House District 10 currently runs from the city of Tillamook in the north to the north edge of Yachats in the south, but goes inland to Grand Ronde, Sheridan and Falls City in Polk and Yamhill counties.
Under the new boundaries approved Monday, House District 10 starts at the north border of Lincoln County, then runs south to the north edge of Florence in Lane County. It will now include western Benton County, including city of Philomath, and areas west of Harrisburg and Junction City in Lane County.
Gomberg said he was fine with the changes and believes the people in the area have much in common.
“Nothing’s perfect, but Philomath is probably a better fit in the district than Falls City and Sheridan,” he said. “I certainly hope the people of Philomath feel that way.”
The city of Yachats and areas to the south through Coos Bay had been part of House District 9, which is now held by Rep. Boomer Wright, R-Reedsport. The Yachats area, Tenmile, and the area to the north edge of Florence now joins Gomberg’s district, which had been a goal of his during the redistricting process.
Balancing population changes
Under redistricting guidelines, each Oregon Senate district drawn up this year will need to include roughly 141,242 people, with consideration also taken into preserving communities of interest and other factors. Each House district will need to include roughly 70,621 people.
The criteria that the Legislature or the Secretary of State uses for apportioning legislative and congressional districts requires that each as nearly as practicable, shall be contiguous; be of equal population; use existing geographic or political boundaries; not divide communities of common interest; and be connected by transportation links. In addition, the law says no district shall be drawn for the purpose of favoring any political party, incumbent legislator or other person.
“For Oregon’s 90 Senators and Representatives, this is a very personal enterprise,” Gomberg said in a statement Tuesday. “We care about the communities we represent. We care about the people who live and work there. And to be candid, we also care about our own political futures.
“At this point I’m going to state the obvious,” his statement said. “When Democrats craft district maps, those maps tend to favor Democrats. When Republicans propose alternate maps, those lines tend to favor Republicans. Even with the best of intentions, the process is almost impossible to do to everyone’s satisfaction.”
Gomberg said the new map proposed for Oregon’s Congressional districts is “largely the reason for the drama of the past seven days.” He also said the past week reinforced his belief that a non-partisan commission should be in charge of new legislative and congressional boundaries, not lawmakers themselves.
Passes on party-line votes
The plans approved Monday were passed by Democratic majorities over repeated Republican objections that ended Monday just hours before a deadline laid out by the Oregon Supreme Court. The Senate passed both plans during a 40-minute session a week earlier. The House took longer.
No Republicans voted for either plan. Only two Democrats — Brian Clem of Salem and Brad Witt of Clatskanie — voted against the legislative plan in the House.
“It was a bumpy road from start to finish,” Senate President Peter Courtney, the veteran Salem Democrat who has gone through a record five redistricting cycles, said afterward. “But I think history will show we did a good job.”
Gov. Kate Brown signed the bills within an hour of adjournment.
Population shifts
Oregon, after narrowly missing it in the 2010 Census, gained a sixth U.S. House seat with population growth of 10.6 percent in the past decade.
Oregon’s two largest growing counties in the past decade, Washington and Deschutes, are now split between congressional districts in the plan, and their legislative districts also shrank. In general, Oregon’s urban areas gained people — the three Portland metro counties grew by 12 percent — and rural areas lost people.
Republicans complained about many more splits in both plans they found illogical, except to help Democrats.
“But many of us are here because we don’t trust the secretary of state to draw these maps, either,” first-term GOP Rep. Suzanne Weber of Tillamook said.
If lawmakers had failed, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan would have assumed the task of redrawing lines for the 30 Oregon Senate districts and 60 House districts — two House districts must be nestled within a single Senate district — and a special panel of judges named by Chief Justice Martha Walters would have overseen congressional redistricting.
Legal challenges now go directly to the Oregon Supreme Court, which is the final arbiter for both plans. The justices will have their own deadlines to meet before the plans become final in time for the 2022 elections, filing for which has already opened.
Congressional changes
Republicans were outspoken in their criticisms, particularly of the congressional plan. Oregon’s U.S. House delegation is already at four Democrats and one Republican.
“Spreading out urban voters by having four districts that include portions of Portland is the very definition of gerrymandering,” Senate Republican Leader Fred Girod of Lyons said afterward. “There will undoubtedly be court challenges to follow.”
An analysis by the FiveThirtyEight.com website says:
- Democrats are solid in the First and Third districts, which branch out west from Portland to the north coast and east from Portland to Hood River County. The First loses part of Washington County and Yamhill County, but gains Tillamook County and inner Northeast Portland east of the Willamette River. The Third will extend to more of Clackamas County.
- Democrats are competitive in the Fourth District of the southern Willamette Valley and southwest Oregon — it gains Lincoln County from the Fifth and loses part of Douglas County to the Second — and the new Sixth district, which runs from southeast Washington County south into Yamhill and Polk counties and Marion County, including Salem.
- Republicans are solid in the Second, which takes in most of Oregon east of the Cascades — except Bend — and south of the Willamette Valley, extending into Douglas County.
- The new Fifth, which runs from Portland’s south suburbs into the mid-Willamette Valley and then across to Bend, is highly competitive. This district is currently represented by Kurt Schrader, a Democrat who votes with his party less often than the others in the delegation.
— Peter Wong of the Oregon Capital Bureau contributed to this report