It's about time to get serious about congressional redistricting, a rather serious subject.
We now have the full raw data from the 2020 Census. But it's currently unwieldy. Somebody described its present state as an Excel spreadsheet 96 columns wide.
It'll be more organized, user-friendly and online-searchable by mid-September, both from the U.S. Census Bureau and by the work of the software service the state Legislature has hired.
The state House and Senate committees tasked with converting the decade's population shifts to revised congressional districts will have their first joint meeting today, mostly to get an overview about the coming process.
But let's cut to what the story eventually will be, which is to say partisanship.
Most of the state's growth is in two counties in the historically Republican northwest corner, Washington and Benton. The 3rd District thus must shed territory, giving up ground to the population-losing rural 1st on the east and/or the population-losing rural 4th on the south.
So, the first thing to know is that the Republicans are wholly in charge of the Legislature and these are highly partisan varietals. They are motivated to own any remaining Arkansas liberals, extract revenge for Democratic slights in the past and protect and even enhance their already overpowering advantages.
The most logical and seemingly easiest adjustment in the 3rd District would be to move out its perimeter counties--Pope, say, to the 4th District, and Marion, just as an example, to the 1st.
But that removes Republican votes in a way that would strengthen the hand in the compressed 3rd District of the Democratic island of Fayetteville. And, over the coming decade, that might combine with the further Democratization of the district from folks continuing to pour into the wonderland the Waltons are building in Benton County.
Ten years ago, Democrats were in legislative control and they floated what some of us disparaged as the "Fayetteville Finger." That was an utterly conspicuous narrow strip running up the middle of the 3rd District into Fayetteville that presumably would be placed in the 4th District existing otherwise across south Arkansas. The point was to enhance the congressional re-election chances of the now long-gone Mike Ross.
But that got derailed by ridicule, reason and Fayetteville's political muscle.
This time, conceivably, Republicans could carve out a Fayetteville finger of their own--more a thumb this time--to remove the city's voting power in a packed-in 3rd District.
Meantime, the 2nd District in central Arkansas gained population, but not all that much as a percentage of the whole.
Its seven counties made up 25 percent of the state population in 2010. Three of them--Pulaski, Saline and Faulkner--had gains in the decade. Four--White, Perry, Van Buren and Conway--had losses. Now the seven-county district makes up 25.5 percent of the state population.
With federal law mandating equal populations among districts to the extent "practicable," and suggesting variances of less than 1 percent, and with federal law favoring keeping counties intact to the extent possible, the 2nd District might not have to change at all.
But Republicans could use the numbers to move out a couple of thousand Democratic votes.
While Republicans have long-term concerns in the 3rd in the northwest, the situation in the 2nd in the state's center is more immediate. Its congressman, French Hill, got challenged significantly three times in the decade by Democrats racking up in Pulaski County, but fading miserably outside Pulaski.
Clarke Tucker lost Saline County to Hill by 16,000 votes in 2018 and lost the 2nd District by 16,000 votes.
The most logical places for the 2nd District to give up ground would be perimeter counties--White on the northeast to the 1st District or Saline on the south and southwest to the 4th District. But White County has been the single most reliable county for Hill, giving him about 80 percent against the strongest Democratic challengers. Saline hasn't been far behind.
You can see, then, that giving up portions of White and/or Saline would strengthen Pulaski's leverage slightly and make Hill's already inconvenient Democratic challenges mildly more inconvenient.
So, a Republican alternative--if in-your-face partisanship was the objective--would be to split Pulaski County, carving out a section of it for either the 1st or 4th. The tackiest option would be to take southeastern portions of Pulaski and give it to the 4th District, thus splitting Pulaski's Black votes.
That might land in federal court. And that's not actually the tackiest option.
The tackiest move would be a "Little Rock Finger," a thin line running from the southern Pulaski border into Little Rock to carve out a few Black neighborhoods on the southern reaches of the corporate city limits.
That'd pay back those liberals in Little Rock for having judges messing with Republicans' best-laid plans for unmasking schoolchildren.
Surely they wouldn't do that.
At any rate, it's probably time to start paying attention.
And, by the way, the governor, secretary of state and attorney general will soon tackle the redrawing of all state legislative districts. That's much more complex and intricate, and potentially much more fun. Rural Arkansas must lose seats. Whose, I wonder?
John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.