While the Legislature gets ready to vote on congressional redistricting bills this week, the state's Board of Apportionment's staff is working toward getting the proposed legislative district maps drawn as soon as possible for public comment.
Betty Dickey, coordinator of the Board of Apportionment and a former Arkansas Supreme Court chief justice, gave a rundown of the process to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She thinks the redrawn Senate and House maps could be approved by the board as early as mid-November.
"We don't start meeting until October," she said. "The three principal drafters are working on the Senate and House maps now, and we will go over them the first week in October."
According to its website, the duty of the Board of Apportionment is to redraw 100 House and 35 Senate districts so that each meets various legal criteria, including each district being about the same size in population.
With the results from the most recent U.S. census, which showed that Arkansas has just over 3 million people, each state House seat will represent about 30,000 people and each state Senate seat will represent about 86,000 people.
The board, currently consisting of Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Secretary of State John Thurston, redraws legislative districts every 10 years based on population changes identified by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Congressional districts are redrawn by the state Legislature, which is reviewing legislation to be considered in a session set to start later this week.
Dickey said the drafters of legislative maps will present their ideas to the Board of Apportionment staff.
"The idea is that we will meet and see where there is agreement and where there are problems and how the legal criteria fits," she said.
Dickey said once they reach at least partial consensus on the maps, they will present them to Rutledge, Hutchinson and Thurston.
"We will either present to them one of each or three separate maps for each one," she said.
The Board of Apportionment will then vote on the maps and the ones they choose will be presented to the public during a 30-day period for feedback.
Dickey said the Board of Apportionment's goal is to have the process done and submitted by mid-November.
"That might be unrealistic, but hopefully before or around Thanksgiving," she said. "We are obligated to finish it by Dec. 31."
Census officials warned states earlier this year that the data needed for redistricting wouldn't be delivered to all states until Sept. 30.
However, Shelby Johnson, state geographic information officer for the Arkansas Geographic Information Systems office, said Ohio filed a lawsuit requesting earlier delivery of the information and, as part of a settlement, census officials agreed to make the data available using an older format to expedite the process.
IMPACT ON NEW BOUNDARIES
Sen. Keith Ingram, D-West Memphis, said in an interview last week that this delay by the Census Bureau in the delivery of information has an effect on redrawing of many types of districts.
"It affects your quorum court districts, your school districts and more," he said. "The delay that has been experienced by not getting this information out earlier means you might have less than 45 days to know what district you are going to be in if you are considering running an election race."
The filing period for legislative, congressional and constitutional offices is in late February and early March.
Ingram said the delay in information is also putting a burden on county clerks and election commissions across the state.
"It's a big job, and that is why we are trying to keep counties together as much as possible when it comes congressional redistricting in the state," he said.
Johnson said his office spends a tremendous amount of time answering requests for information and questions from cities, counties and school districts.
"This only happens every 10 years and normally the activity would be spread out over a longer time frame," he said. " We would normally tell cities, counties and school boards to wait until the congressional and state House and Senate are done before they start local redistricting plans, because this allows them to try to match up the local lines with the higher election geography, but this time around there's no time to wait, so that has compressed the timeline and all of those calls that would normally be spread out are all happening at once."
POPULATION SHIFTS
The board received raw census data in August that showed rural areas of the entire state became less populated and the urban areas of central and Northwest Arkansas both grew.
Dickey said the population decline in the Delta is an issue that the Board of Apportionment will have to work through very carefully.
"Trying to maintain the majority-minority districts of the past will be difficult," she said. "When the population in an existing district isn't raised to the level 30,000, it takes other counties being added to it to reach the number. This dilutes, in a sense, a county's vote in the state Legislature."
The migration to Northwest Arkansas adds its own set of problems.
"We have very concentrated districts in Northwest Arkansas that have to be drawn smaller because of the population explosion," she said. "It has made it harder."
Dickey said the board tries to avoid having incumbents running against each other due to redistricting, but population shifts across the state might not make that possible.
"In some cases we can't avoid it this time," she said.
The Board of Apportionment staff held meetings across the state over the past couple of months to gather public input.
"Most of them went well," Dickey said. "Most had good participation and legitimate questions and comments, and we had very few problems. They were generally well received."
Some of the concerns brought up at these meetings included the potential for gerrymandering, human error and the amount of population shift in the Delta.
Dickey said even though this was her first time in charge of the board, she felt there was much more interest this year than before.
"I read the transcript from the last one 10 years ago and there seems to be more interest and participation this time," she said. "Whether it be in person or seeing it live streamed or when it's archived."
Dickey said she views the interest in the redistricting process as a positive.
"It's great to have this kind of public interest in this government process," she said.