Redistricting appears dead in Nevada Legislature
Lawmakers said Sunday they don’t expect to reach agreement on redistricting before the Nevada Legislature wraps up.
“I think we just ran out of time,” said Assemblyman Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Assembly Legislative Operations and Elections Committee.
State Sen. James Settelmeyer, R-Minden, agreed that there seems little reason to hope Republicans and Democrats can agree on a set of new district maps by today.
“I think it’s going to court,” Settelmeyer said. “The Democrats want us to give up too much. And all we want are a fair set of maps.”
Settelmeyer said “it’s a gamble” to allow a judge to decide the new shape of Nevada’s four congressional districts and its 21 state Senate and 42 Assembly districts. But Republicans believe the maps Democrats have offered so far violate the Voting Rights Act, he said, and so the GOP hopes to prevail.
Segerblom and other Democrats have said the two redistricting plans they have submitted complied with the law, however.
Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval has vetoed two previous Democratic-drawn sets of maps that had no support from Republicans who called them unfair.
Every 10 years, states across the country must draw new boundaries for legislative and congressional districts. Nevada won a fourth U.S. House seat this year because its population grew to 2.7 million, according to the 2010 census.
Republican and Democratic leaders met Friday afternoon to talk about ways they could reach a compromise, but no real progress had been made since. Instead, lawmakers have been spending most of their time approving pieces of a budget agreement as well as rushing through bills to meet a 1 a.m. Tuesday deadline to finish the 76th session of the Nevada Legislature.
“It doesn’t look promising,” Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, said Saturday, signaling a compromise seemed unattainable.
Assembly Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, said he also sees the matter heading to the courts. Both political parties have filed lawsuits already.
If lawmakers don’t reach a deal, the governor could call them back into special session to work on redistricting, although he has said he would not do so right away. And he may not at all.
The main difference between the two political parties is how to distribute Nevada’s growing Hispanic population, now 26 percent of the state.
Republicans want to draw one congressional district in Southern Nevada with 50 percent of its population Hispanic. The GOP also wants to create four state Senate and eight Assembly districts with majority Latino populations.
But Democrats want to spread out the Hispanic population among districts to give Latinos wider influence at the ballot box. Still, several of the legislative districts proposed by Democrats would be heavily Latino, up to 70 percent, which Republicans call illegal “packing” of minorities.
Politically, Democrats see Hispanics as swing voters who largely support them. Republicans maintain the Voting Rights Act calls for Hispanics to be awarded minority-majority districts if possible. Putting more Latinos together also would make the non-Hispanic districts lean more GOP, benefiting Republicans overall.
Another issue is how to draw the 3rd Congressional District now held by U.S. Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., the only incumbent planning to run for re-election in 2012.
The second set of Democratic maps added Hispanics to make Heck’s Southern Nevada district about one-third Latino and heavily Democratic. The Republicans want to keep the seat competitive. It now leans slightly Democratic in voter registration.
The 2nd Congressional District, covering rural and Northern Nevada, is expected to remain safe for a Republican. The other two districts — the 1st Congressional and new 4th Congressional districts — are expected to be drawn to favor Democrats in voter-rich Clark County where 70 percent of the state’s population lives.
Over the weekend, a spokesman for Heck’s congressional office said his staff hadn’t been heavily involved in redistricting, another sign there’s little hope of compromise.
Contact reporter Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.
