Murphey Update: Redistricting 2011

Not that I am counting or anything, but there are now just six weeks left in this year’s legislative session.

During this time, the legislature must complete its normal set of responsibilities, in addition to developing congressional and legislative redistricting plans. This will be a unique experience for many of us. Legislative redistricting only takes place once every ten years, and since legislators can only serve 12 years due to term limits, this will be the only legislative redistricting process we will ever take part in.

It has been interesting to watch the process as it has evolved throughout the season. Early on, the careful observer could note that lawmakers were on the House floor carrying maps and consulting with the colleagues with whom they shared district borders. The process allowed representatives to draw their own draft redistricting maps and we worked with each other to suggest possible redistricting changes which balanced out the populations in our districts.

Following the creation of these first drafts, the Redistricting Committee Chairmen went to work to build their own proposals which re-shaped the current boundaries and the drafts compiled by the legislators. This is a politically charged process, because one of the foremost ways to make a legislator unhappy is to upset the composition of his/her district.

The population shifts in Oklahoma during the last ten years are almost certain to mean several of our districts will be significantly affected, and this impact will be heavily felt in the area which I represent. As rural Oklahoma fails to keep pace with the state’s population growth, the rural districts must expand in size.

For instance, the district located in the Oklahoma Panhandle must get larger. When it expands to the east and south, it will create a domino effect by pushing other legislative districts to the east. These districts may also already need to pick up new people due to population losses. The domino effect will not stop until it reaches areas like ours which have grown in size. Thus, some of the most dramatic redistricting changes could occur in our area because House District 31 sits directly on the boundary between rural and urban Oklahoma.

I believe it is important for those of us in growth areas to understand the challenge which is facing our rural colleagues and to work with them to facilitate the orderly expansion of their districts in a way that allows their districts to stay as compact as possible. The first map of these proposed changes could be made available as early as this week.

A similar map of proposed congressional district changes has already been made public and can be viewed online at www.hd31.org/83. Unlike the legislative map, the current congressional map does not contain any changes to area congressional representation and has already received the unanimous support of the House Redistricting Committee.

I will continue to provide updates about the redistricting process as it nears its conclusion in the next few weeks.