Washington’s Redistricting Commission to unveil proposed congressional map tomorrow

With its dead­line for sub­mit­ting new con­gres­sion­al and leg­isla­tive dis­trict maps fast approach­ing, Wash­ing­ton’s four Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion­ers announced at a short, ten-minute meet­ing today that they are mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant progress in draw­ing up new maps, and expect to have pre­lim­i­nary pro­pos­als to make pub­lic tomorrow.

The four com­mis­sion­ers — Slade Gor­ton, Tim Ceis, Tom Huff, and Dean Fos­ter — are each work­ing with a com­mis­sion­er from the oth­er par­ty on the new maps.

Gor­ton and Ceis have been draw­ing up a pro­pos­al for the con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts, while Fos­ter and Huff have been draw­ing up a pro­pos­al for the leg­isla­tive districts.

Pre­sum­ably, Fos­ter and Huf­f’s pro­pos­al will con­cern leg­isla­tive dis­trict bound­aries in east­ern Wash­ing­ton. (On Decem­ber 16th, the Com­mis­sion released draft leg­isla­tive maps for west­ern Wash­ing­ton. Ceis and Gor­don’s pro­pos­al cov­ered Puget Sound and the Cas­cade foothills, while Fos­ter and Huf­f’s pro­pos­al dealt with south­west Wash­ing­ton and the Olympic Peninsula).

Ceis and Gor­don’s con­gres­sion­al dis­trict pro­pos­al, how­ev­er, will be the first such draft released by the com­mis­sion. It won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly be the final pro­pos­al, but it’ll be cred­i­ble grist for spec­u­la­tion, unlike the indi­vid­ual maps the four com­mis­sion­ers each came up with back in the autumn.

Its unveil­ing is expect­ed to be the high­light of tomor­row’s meet­ing, with will con­vene at 11 AM in at the John A. Cher­berg Build­ing in Hear­ing Room 4. (This is the state Sen­ate’s office build­ing; it is locat­ed across from the Leg­isla­tive Build­ing on the Capi­tol Cam­pus, which is adja­cent to South Capi­tol Way).

Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion staff say that the pub­lic is wel­come to attend in per­son or watch and give com­ment dur­ing the inter­ac­tive web­cast on their “Get Involved” page. TVW will also be stream­ing the meet­ing live on its web­site.