Edi­tor’s Note: The NPI team is pleased to wel­come Richard Cham­pi­on as a con­trib­u­tor to the NPI Advo­cate. Richard is a com­mit­ted Demo­c­ra­t­ic activist who cur­rent­ly serves as the 2nd Vice Chair of the King Coun­ty Democ­rats. He resides in the 30th LD and is active in the 30th LD Democ­rats. As with all posts by our con­trib­u­tors, the views expressed here are his, and not those of NPI. Enjoy, and feel free to leave your own thoughts on this idea in the com­ment thread. 

Two years ago, I weighed in on our state’s redis­trict­ing process with a sub­stan­tive diary on Dai­ly Kos in which I talked about what a con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly-com­pli­ant set of maps might look like, and pre­sent­ed some examples.

As before, I was spurred to look more close­ly at the con­se­quences of redis­trict­ing fol­low­ing the late John Milem’s law­suit chal­leng­ing the legal­i­ty of the Wash­ing­ton State Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion’s decen­ni­al maps.

Arti­cle II, Sec­tion of 43 of Wash­ing­ton’s Con­sti­tu­tion and state law (RCW 44.05.090) state that redis­trict­ing maps should be drawn so as to:

1. Coin­cide with the bound­aries of local polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sions and areas rec­og­nized as com­mu­ni­ties of interest;
2. Make the num­ber of coun­ties and munic­i­pal­i­ties divid­ed among more than one dis­trict as small as possible;
3. Be con­ve­nient, con­tigu­ous (con­nect­ed by trans­porta­tion), and com­pact ter­ri­to­ry; and
4. Pro­vide fair and effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion, encour­age elec­toral com­pe­ti­tion, and not drawn to pur­pose­ly favor of any polit­i­cal par­ty or group.

While the state Con­sti­tu­tion does­n’t for­bid sin­gle-mem­ber House dis­tricts, RCW 44.05.090 cur­rent­ly states that state rep­re­sen­ta­tives are elect­ed at-large in the leg­isla­tive dis­tricts. Wash­ing­ton is one of only ten states left that still has mul­ti-mem­ber dis­tricts. Sin­gle-mem­ber dis­tricts allow for a more log­i­cal hier­ar­chy between the House and Sen­ate, as well as allow­ing for more major­i­ty-minor­i­ty dis­tricts result­ing in more leg­is­la­tors from racial minori­ties in the state legislature.

While Wash­ing­ton isn’t under the umbrel­la of Sec­tion 5 of the Vot­ing Rights Act — even before the Supreme Court’s recent deci­sion evis­cer­at­ing Sec­tion 4 — greater diver­si­ty in our elect­ed offi­cials is a worth­while goal, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of Wash­ing­ton state’s decreas­ing leg­isla­tive diver­si­ty.

In Wash­ing­ton, redis­trict­ing is done by the Wash­ing­ton State Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion, which has two Democ­rats, two Repub­li­cans and a non­vot­ing, non­par­ti­san chair. Since the com­mit­tee mem­bers are cho­sen by the Leg­is­la­ture’s four major par­ty cau­cus­es, the plans they pro­duce look like incum­bent pro­tec­tion maps. And that’s because both par­ties are try­ing to pro­tect their own.

This results in safe dis­tricts that unnec­es­sar­i­ly split coun­ties and cities, which is in vio­la­tion of what’s in both the state Con­sti­tu­tion and state law. Wash­ing­ton is one of only ten states that has mul­ti-mem­ber dis­tricts. RCW 44.05.090 states:

The house of rep­re­sen­ta­tives shall con­sist of nine­ty-eight mem­bers, two of whom shall be elect­ed from and run at large with­in each leg­isla­tive district.

Mul­ti-mem­ber dis­trict­ing has been in decline since the Vot­ing Rights Act was adopt­ed and specif­i­cal­ly the 1982 Supreme Court case Thorn­burg v. Gin­gles, in which a unan­i­mous Court found that:

… the lega­cy of offi­cial dis­crim­i­na­tion … act­ed in con­cert with the mul­ti-mem­ber dis­trict­ing scheme to impair the abil­i­ty of … cohe­sive groups of black vot­ers to par­tic­i­pate equal­ly in the polit­i­cal process and to elect can­di­dates of their choice.

Since the adop­tion of Vot­ing Rights Act and the Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Thorn­burg v. Gin­gles, states not cov­ered by Sec­tion 5 of the Act have tak­en a bet­ter safe than sor­ry approach by elim­i­nat­ing their mul­ti-mem­ber dis­trict­ing so as to not be sub­ject to court challenges.

It’s plain­ly obvi­ous that when you have small­er dis­tricts of ‘com­mu­ni­ties of inter­est’ you are less like­ly to dilute the vot­ing strength of com­mu­ni­ties of col­or and there­fore bet­ter allow them to elect can­di­dates of their choice.

A fine exam­ple is South Dako­ta, which, like Wash­ing­ton, has two state rep­re­sen­ta­tives and one state sen­a­tor elect­ed from each leg­isla­tive dis­trict, except for two leg­isla­tive dis­tricts (the 26th & and 28th) which are split into sin­gle-mem­ber House dis­tricts since the Pine Ridge and Rose­bud Reser­va­tions are (or were until recent­ly) cov­ered under Sec­tion 5 of the Vot­ing Rights Act.

In both 2011 and 2012, Hans Dun­shee (D‑District 44/Snohomish) intro­duced House Bill 1092 which would have changed the state law to state:

Each leg­isla­tive dis­trict shall be divid­ed into two house dis­tricts, denot­ed as house dis­trict A and B, with a sin­gle mem­ber of the house of rep­re­sen­ta­tives being elect­ed from each house district.

This would have result­ed in Wash­ing­ton being anal­o­gous to oth­er west­ern states like Alas­ka, Ore­gon, Neva­da, Mon­tana, and Wyoming which also have a “two-in-one” leg­isla­tive struc­ture. Suf­fice to say, the bill — which would have poten­tial­ly dis­placed sev­er­al incum­bents — failed to get a vote.

This points at anoth­er issue with the cur­rent mul­ti-mem­ber dis­trict­ing — leg­is­la­tor crowd­ing. For exam­ple, in the 12th and 25th LDs, all of the leg­is­la­tors reside in Wenatchee/East Wenatchee and Puyallup, respec­tive­ly, even though those cities account for less than half of the pop­u­la­tion in the dis­trict. As shown below, that would not be pos­si­ble in a sin­gle-mem­ber House dis­trict map.

Also at issue with mul­ti-mem­ber dis­trict­ing is that its at odds with the com­mon­ly under­stood Amer­i­can hier­ar­chy between upper and low­er leg­isla­tive bod­ies, where­in sen­a­tors rep­re­sent larg­er pop­u­la­tions with more broad and diverse inter­ests and con­cerns, while rep­re­sen­ta­tives have nar­row­er, more cohe­sive constituencies.

In states like Wash­ing­ton, sen­a­tors and rep­re­sen­ta­tives have iden­ti­cal com­mu­ni­ties result­ing in less diver­si­ty of leg­isla­tive mind­sets; to say noth­ing of decreased diver­si­ty in leg­is­la­tors them­selves. In addi­tion, sin­gle-mem­ber House dis­tricts would allow for par­ti­san diver­si­ty from region to region.

Cur­rent­ly, east­ern Wash­ing­ton is rep­re­sent­ed exclu­sive­ly by Repub­li­cans… if we don’t count the Democ­rats who hail from with­in Spokane.

The exist­ing dis­tricts are uncom­pet­i­tive, but small­er House dis­tricts would enable Democ­rats, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Yaki­ma, to at least have a chance of being elect­ed — and encour­ag­ing elec­toral com­pe­ti­tion is one of the prin­ci­ples that the Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion is sup­posed to be using when cre­at­ing their plans.

Those of you read­ing who like the sound of this idea may be won­der­ing: How might we go about replac­ing leg­isla­tive dis­tricts with House and Sen­ate districts?

First, let’s look at the leg­isla­tive map cre­at­ed by the Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion. It is impor­tant to note that their plan split twen­ty-four cities that did­n’t need to be split due to size. These are: Aberdeen, Auburn, Bat­tle Ground, Belle­vue, Belling­ham, Bre­mer­ton, Burien, Des Moines, Edmonds, Everett, Issaquah, Ken­newick, Kent, Kirk­land, Lake­wood, Lyn­nwood, Marysville, Mount Ver­non, Mount­lake Ter­race, Pas­co, Red­mond, Ren­ton, Sam­mamish, and Yakima.

Fur­ther­more, their plan split sev­en coun­ties that did­n’t need to be based on their pop­u­la­tion. The coun­ties that got split are Cowlitz, Franklin, Grant, Grays Har­bor, Lewis, Okanogan, and Skagit.

Take a look at this gallery of cur­rent statewide Wash­ing­ton leg­isla­tive maps. (Note: Devi­a­tions from actu­al map are the result of Dav­e’s Redis­trict­ing App not allow­ing for the split­ting of vot­ing precincts, while the Com­mis­sion could):

[image­brows­er id=1]

Elec­toral per­for­mance of the cur­rent Wash­ing­ton leg­isla­tive map based on the 2008 Pres­i­den­tial and 2010 Sen­ate elections:

Last year, John Milem (a cit­i­zen activist from Van­cou­ver who fol­lowed the redis­trict­ing process close­ly) filed a law­suit to chal­lenge the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion’s maps. As part of his com­plaint, Milem cre­at­ed his own plan that he felt would actu­al­ly fol­low those pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed canons of redistricting.

Here is a statewide look at his leg­isla­tive map:

And an inset of the Puget Sound region:

One of the big flaws with Milem’s plan is that he does not take incum­ben­cy into account. By that, I don’t mean pro­tect­ing incum­bents from an elec­toral chal­lenge, but pre­vent­ing incum­bent state sen­a­tors from rep­re­sent­ing a dis­trict where they do not reside. Specif­i­cal­ly, I’m talk­ing about sen­a­tors who aren’t up for elec­tion in the year fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of redis­trict­ing, in this case in 2012.

Cal­i­for­nia is cur­rent­ly fac­ing as sim­i­lar prob­lem in the after­math of their com­plete over­haul of their redis­trict­ing process.

Only half of Wash­ing­ton state sen­a­tors are up for elec­tion each cycle, so when tasked with leg­isla­tive redis­trict­ing – as opposed to con­gres­sion­al redis­trict­ing where all incum­bent U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives are up for elec­tion in each even-num­bered year – any­one attempt­ing to draw new maps must seek to avoid hav­ing those state sen­a­tors not up for elec­tion dis­trict­ed out.

In at least four cas­es, Milem dis­trict­ed two state sen­a­tors into the same dis­trict when nei­ther were up for elec­tion in 2012 – his 4th (Ranker & Erick­sen), 25th (Eide & Keis­er), 21st (Kohl-Welles & Mur­ray) and 8th (Sells & Shin) Leg­isla­tive Districts.

Under Milem’s plan, more than 8% of the State Sen­ate would be rep­re­sent­ed by sen­a­tors who don’t live in their district.

One solu­tion to this would be to do what Texas does (one of the few sen­si­ble things they do) which is to make all of state sen­a­tors stand for elec­tion the year fol­low­ing redis­trict­ing. Then, after the elec­tion, they’d have to draw straws, with half get­ting the short straw and serv­ing a two-year term, and the oth­er half draw­ing a long straw and serv­ing a four-year term. While Texas still does a ridicu­lous amount of ger­ry­man­der­ing, they don’t have to for rea­sons of state sen­a­tors not being up for elec­tion. Wash­ing­ton could do the same thing.

I don’t like the prac­tice of split­ting cities when cities could be divid­ed more sim­ply or not at all. Milem splits the cities of Taco­ma and Ren­ton into four and three LDs, respec­tive­ly, while Taco­ma only needs to be split into two dis­tricts and Ren­ton does not need to be split at all, which I was able accom­plish in both cases.

But I do agree with much of what John Milem pro­posed — and that’s why you’ll see sev­er­al sim­i­lar­i­ties in our approach­es. In the end, his plan split only five cities that did­n’t need to be based on size; those being: Belle­vue, Both­ell, Coulee Dam, Ren­ton, and Yaki­ma. Also, his plan splits only one unnec­es­sary coun­ty, Skag­it, but he dis­re­gards the neces­si­ty for con­nec­tiv­i­ty with his Island Coun­ty dis­trict hav­ing no way to get from Camano Island to Whid­bey Island.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I was­n’t able cre­ate a chart of the elec­toral per­for­mance of John Milem’s pro­posed leg­isla­tive map, since I don’t have shape files for his plan to plug into Dav­e’s Redis­trict­ing App and it’s too hard to “eye­ball” it.

Now final­ly, we come to my pro­posed State Sen­ate and House pro­posed redis­trict­ing maps. There are four­teen maps in all in this gallery, and you can page through them by click­ing the nav­i­ga­tion but­tons below the first image.

The first two maps show a state-lev­el view of pro­posed House and Sen­ate dis­tricts, while the remain­ing twelve maps are insets of pop­u­lat­ed areas like Puget Sound and the heart of the Inland Empire. You can click on any image for a big­ger view.

[image­brows­er id=2]

Here is a chart of the elec­toral per­for­mance of my pro­posed State Sen­ate map:

And here is a chart of the elec­toral per­for­mance of my pro­posed State House map:

Now I’ll go through the pro­posed dis­tricts and note their characteristics.

(Note: I used num­ber­ing sim­i­lar to what’s being used cur­rent­ly, but in cas­es of where there was an incum­bent state sen­a­tor that was­n’t up for elec­tion in 2012, his or her dis­trict num­ber took prece­dence. For exam­ple, Derek Kilmer was­n’t up in 2012, so his hypo­thet­i­cal “new” dis­trict is num­bered #26, even though #27 more close­ly resem­bles his pro­posed district.)

1st SD: Like­ly-to-safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic sub­ur­ban dis­trict strad­dling King-Sno­homish Coun­ty line with all of Both­ell (which is in both coun­ties), Wood­inville, Brier, and Ken­more. HD 1 is an entire­ly King Coun­ty safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict, includ­ing Both­ell (King Coun­ty por­tion), Wood­inville, and Ken­more, while HD 2 is a like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic com­plete­ly Sno­homish Coun­ty dis­trict includ­ing Both­ell (Sno­homish Coun­ty por­tion), Brier, and the unin­cor­po­rat­ed North Creek community.

2nd SD: Safe Repub­li­can rural/suburban dis­trict strad­dling Pierce-Thurston Coun­ty line with most of JBLM and all of Steila­coom, Yelm, Ort­ing, and Eatonville. HD 3 is the more west­er­ly like­ly Repub­li­can dis­trict, includ­ing JBLM, Steila­coom, Yelm, and Dupont. Oba­ma lost by less than two hun­dred and fifty votes here in 2008, but it’d take an excep­tion­al cir­cum­stance for a Demo­c­rat to be elect­ed here. HD 4 is the east­ern safe Repub­li­can, more rur­al dis­trict, includ­ing Ort­ing, Eatonville, and the unin­cor­po­rat­ed Gra­ham community.

3rd SD: Tossup urban/suburban dis­trict with north­ern Spokane and unin­cor­po­rat­ed sub­urbs north of Spokane. It’s worth not­ing that I made 3rd and 6th SDs basi­cal­ly elec­toral­ly equiv­a­lent. In both pro­posed sen­ate dis­tricts, Pat­ty Mur­ray won by 50.1–50.0%. Both very swingy, in pur­suit of elec­toral com­pe­ti­tion (and since Spokane must be split). Also, like the 6th SD, the House dis­tricts redound­ed to a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict entire­ly with­in the city of Spokane, in this case HD 5, and a like­ly Repub­li­can, most­ly sub­ur­ban dis­trict, in this case HD 6.

4th SD: Safe Repub­li­can suburban/rural dis­trict east of Spokane cen­tered around Spokane Val­ley. HD 7 is the more rur­al and more Repub­li­can dis­trict, while HD 8 is the region on Spokane Val­ley (and Mill­wood) near­est the city of Spokane and some­what less con­ser­v­a­tive, though both are still safe Repub­li­can districts.

5th SD: Like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict; locat­ed in a dif­fer­ent area of King Coun­ty than the cur­rent 5th Dis­trict, rep­re­sent­ed by Mark Mul­let in the Sen­ate. This was drawn as a diverse (53% white) dis­trict, includ­ing all of Kent and Cov­ing­ton. HD 9 is west­ern Kent safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house dis­trict, while HD 10 is a tossup dis­trict includ­ing east­ern Kent and Cov­ing­ton (only 58% white).

6th SD: Tossup (see 3rd SD) Spokane Coun­ty dis­trict with south­ern and north­west­ern Spokane and Cheney, Med­ical Lake and Fairchild Air Force Base. As stat­ed ear­li­er, with Dav­e’s Redis­trict­ing App, you can­not split precincts, though it would require enough land to con­nect the col­lege town Cheney with the rest of the dis­trict. HD 11 and HD 12 are sim­i­lar to HD 5 and HD 6, respec­tive­ly, in that they are com­posed of a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic city of Spokane dis­trict and a like­ly Repub­li­can dis­trict most­ly made up of pop­u­la­tions out­side the city. Its also worth not­ing that the divid­ing line between SD 3 and SD 6 was very clean­ly done along I‑90.

7th SD: Safe Repub­li­can Okanogan high­lands dis­tric that includes the entire­ty of the coun­ties of Okanogan, Fer­ry, Stevens, and Pend Oreille as well as north­ern (rur­al) Spokane Coun­ty. HD 13 is a safe Repub­li­can dis­trict, but it notably hap­pens to have the high­est Native Amer­i­can pop­u­la­tion (11%) of any pro­posed House Dis­trict by includ­ing both the Spokane and Colville Indi­an Reser­va­tions as well as all of Okanogan, Fer­ry, and west­ern Stevens Coun­ties. HD 14 is a less diverse, safe Repub­li­can dis­trict that takes in Pend Oreille Coun­ty, east­ern Stevens Coun­ty, and north­ern Spokane Coun­ty (which is very rural).

8th SD: Safe Repub­li­can Ben­ton Coun­ty dis­trict with all of Rich­land and almost all of Ken­newick (split to con­nect Ben­ton and Frankling Coun­ties) as well as the Han­ford Nuclear reser­va­tion. HD 15 is a safe Repub­li­can dis­trict whol­ly with­in the city of Ken­newick (25% His­pan­ic), where­as HD 16 is a safe Repub­li­can dis­trict, includ­ing the cities of Rich­land, West Rich­land and small amount of Kennewick.

9th SD: Safe Repub­li­can south­east Wash­ing­ton dis­trict con­tain­ing Wal­la Wal­la and Pull­man (both col­lege towns) and agri­cul­tur­al ter­ri­to­ry. This dis­trict includes the entire­ty of Wal­la Wal­la, Colum­bia, Garfield, Asotin, and Whit­man Coun­ties as well as some of rur­al south­east Spokane Coun­ty. HD 17 is a safe Repub­li­can dis­trict, includ­ing Wal­la Wal­la, Colum­bia, Garfield, and Asotin (exclud­ing the Lewis­ton area) Coun­ties, while in HD 18, includ­ing all of Whit­man Coun­ty, the Lewis­ton area in Asotin Coun­ty, and rur­al south­east Spokane County.

10th SD: Tossup-to-lean Repub­li­can Sno­homish and Island Coun­ty dis­trict con­tain­ing Marysville, Arling­ton, Stan­wood, the Tualip Indi­an Reser­va­tion and Camano Island. HD 19 is the more rur­al, lean Repub­li­can dis­trict out­side of Marysville includ­ing the Tualip Indi­an Reser­va­tion, while HD 20 is a tossup dis­trict that’s near­ly com­plete­ly with­in the city of Marysville.

11th SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict con­sist­ing of Ren­ton, New­cas­tle and south­west Belle­vue. The Com­mis­sion’s 11th LD is bizarrely shaped, but a major­i­ty-minor­i­ty dis­trict. My 11th SD is not, but is only 53.3% white. I had to very slight­ly ger­ry­man­der HD 21 to make it major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house dis­trict. HD 21 is pret­ty much all Ren­ton, while HD 22 is a less diverse (57% white) safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict made up of north­ern Ren­ton, all of New­cas­tle and the New­port, Som­er­set, and Fac­to­ria neigh­bor­hoods of Bellevue.

12th SD: Safe Repub­li­can dis­trict has all of Kit­ti­tas and Chelan Coun­ties and East Wenatchee in Dou­glas Coun­ty. HD 23 is a com­pact safe Repub­li­can dis­trict span­ning Cash­mere, Wenatchee and East Wenatchee. It has a siz­able His­pan­ic pop­u­la­tion (27%), while HD 24 is a safe Repub­li­can dis­trict com­posed of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties in the elec­tric­i­ty-gen­er­at­ing Kit­ti­tas and Chelan Counties.

13th SD: Safe Repub­li­can dis­trict includ­ing all of Lin­coln and Grant Coun­ties, most of Dou­glas Coun­ty except East Wenatchee, and rur­al west­ern Spokane Coun­ty. While still a safe Repub­li­can dis­trict, HD 25 is a major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house dis­trict (46% His­pan­ic) in south­ern Grant Coun­ty cen­tered around Moses Lake, but also includ­ing the small towns of Quin­cy and Mat­tawa. HD 26 is a safe Repub­li­can dis­trict, more rur­al and con­sid­er­ably less diverse (82.6% white), with US High­way 2 run­ning through the mid­dle. It includes all of Lin­coln Coun­ty, most of Dou­glas Coun­ty, north­ern Grant Coun­ty, and rur­al west­ern Spokane County.

14th SD: Safe Repub­li­can dis­trict in north­ern Yaki­ma Coun­ty com­pris­ing all of Mox­ee, Selah, Zil­lah, Sun­ny­side, and Grand­view and the west­ern (more white) part of the city of Yaki­ma. The city of Yaki­ma was split due to it being rather seg­re­gat­ed, with east Yaki­ma being heav­i­ly His­pan­ic, while west Yaki­ma not hav­ing much of a minor­i­ty pop­u­la­tion. Thus, in the inter­est of cre­at­ing elec­toral­ly com­pet­i­tive (See: SD 15) that did­n’t divide a “com­mu­ni­ty of inter­est” (read: com­mu­ni­ties of col­or), I split the city of Yaki­ma, which isn’t nec­es­sary based on its pop­u­la­tion. Both HD 27 (east) and HD 28 (west) are safe Repub­li­can dis­tricts, but HD 27 is a major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house dis­trict with a 57% His­pan­ic population.

15th SD: Tossup major­i­ty-minor­i­ty sen­ate dis­trict (47% white) tak­ing in the rest of Yaki­ma Coun­ty not in the 14th SD, Ska­ma­nia Coun­ty, Klick­i­tat Coun­ty and a small por­tion of Clark Coun­ty. HD 29 is exclu­sive­ly east Yaki­ma and Union Gap, a major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house dis­trict (51% His­pan­ic) and elec­toral­ly, a tossup dis­trict. HD 30 con­tains basi­cal­ly all of the Yaka­ma Indi­an Reser­va­tion and has the sec­ond high­est pop­u­la­tion of Native Amer­i­cans (10.7%) of the pro­posed House Dis­tricts. HD 30 is a tossup dis­trict and, while not major­i­ty-minor­i­ty, is only 51.7% white.

16th SD: Safe Repub­li­can major­i­ty-minor­i­ty sen­ate dis­trict that has all of Franklin and Adams Coun­ties, rur­al Ben­ton Coun­ty and a small por­tion of unin­cor­po­rat­ed Yaki­ma Coun­ty south of Grand­view. Both HD 31 (south) and HD 32 (north) are major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house dis­tricts and very safe Repub­li­can districts.

17th SD: Lean Repub­li­can dis­trict entire­ly in Clark Coun­ty con­tain­ing east­ern Van­cou­ver, Camas, and Washou­gal. HD 33 is a tossup dis­trict entire­ly in east­ern Van­cou­ver, while HD 34 is a like­ly Repub­li­can dis­trict includ­ing all of Camas and Washou­gal and a small amount of the city of Van­cou­ver in the Mill Plain area.

18th SD: Safe Repub­li­can dis­trict con­tain­ing rur­al and sub­ur­ban unin­cor­po­rat­ed Clark Coun­ty with the small towns of Bat­tle Ground and Ridge­field. HD 35 is a rur­al, very safe Repub­li­can dis­trict cen­tered around Bat­tle Ground, while HD 36 includ­ing the unin­cor­po­rat­ed cen­sus-des­ig­nat­ed places in the Van­cou­ver sub­urbs of Orchards, Five Cor­ners, and Mount Vista is more mod­er­ate, like­ly Repub­li­can dis­trict where Democ­rats could be elec­toral­ly competitive.

19th SD: Tossup dis­trict com­prised of Pacif­ic, Wahki­akum, and Cowlitz Coun­ties and a small por­tion of Clark Coun­ty in and around La Cen­ter. HD 37 is a like­ly Repub­li­can dis­trict in east­ern Cowlitz Coun­ty, includ­ing Kel­so, Kala­ma, and Cas­tle Rock, and the small por­tion of Clark Coun­ty in SD 19, while HD 38 is a lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing all of Pacif­ic and Wahki­akum Coun­ties and Longview in Cowlitz Coun­ty. It is worth not­ing that con­sid­er­ing the per­for­mance of Oba­ma and Mur­ray, this would be con­sid­ered rather elec­toral­ly com­pet­i­tive, but con­ser­v­a­tive and bicon­cep­tu­al Democ­rats have been elect­ed in this area for a long time.

20th SD: Safe Repub­li­can dis­trict con­sist­ing of all of Lewis Coun­ty, includ­ing the cities of Cen­tralia and Chehalis, and rur­al south­ern Thurston Coun­ty. HD 39, which is most­ly south­ern Thurston Coun­ty and rur­al areas around Cen­tralia in Lewis Coun­ty, was won by Oba­ma by more than 450 votes in 2008, though based on Mur­ray’s per­for­mance in 2010 is still at best only a lean Repub­li­can dis­trict. On the oth­er hand, HD 40, includ­ing near­ly all of Lewis Coun­ty, is a very safe Repub­li­can dis­trict, par­tic­u­lar­ly for west­ern Washington.

21st SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic coastal What­com Coun­ty dis­trict con­tain­ing all of Belling­ham, Fer­n­dale, and Blaine. HD 41 is a like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing Fer­n­dale, Blaine, and north­ern Belling­ham, as well as the Lum­mi Indi­an Reser­va­tion, while HD 42 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict con­tain­ing south­ern Belling­ham and the unin­cor­po­rat­ed Sud­den Val­ley com­mu­ni­ty south of Lake Whatcom.

(Aside: The num­ber­ing of this dis­trict was the biggest conun­drum in cre­at­ing this map, since the cur­rent 21st LD is rep­re­sent­ed by Sen. Paull Shin, who was­n’t up for elec­tion in 2012. Sev­er­al oth­er sen­a­tors were in the same boat, specif­i­cal­ly the 38th LD’s Nick Harp­er, the 44th LD’s Steve Hobbs, and the 32nd LD’s Mar­a­lyn Chase. I chose to make it the 21st dis­trict and moved it to What­com Coun­ty, since it least resem­bled the pro­posed Sno­homish Coun­ty sen­ate dis­tricts. This would result in one state sen­a­tor, Paull Shin, rep­re­sent­ing a dis­trict where he does­n’t live, but that is bet­ter than four in John Milem’s proposal.)

22nd SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic Thurston Coun­ty dis­trict includ­ing the state cap­i­tal of Olympia and its sub­urb Lacey. HD 43 is a like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict con­tain­ing Lacey and the unin­cor­po­rat­ed cen­sus-des­ig­nat­ed place Tan­glewil­de-Thomp­son Place. HD 44 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic house dis­trict cen­tered around Olympia.

23rd SD: Lean-to-like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic Kit­sap Coun­ty dis­trict tak­ing in the cities of Pouls­bo, Sil­verdale and Bain­bridge Island. HD 45 is a safe Repub­li­can cen­tral Kit­sap Coun­ty dis­trict con­tain­ing the unin­cor­po­rat­ed cen­sus-des­ig­nat­ed places Sil­verdale, Tra­cy­ton, and Erlands Point-Kit­sap Lake and near­by areas. HD 46 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic north­ern Kit­sap Coun­ty dis­trict con­tain­ing Pouls­bo, Bain­bridge Island, and the Port Madi­son Indi­an Reservation.

24th SD: Lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict con­tain­ing all of Clal­lam and Jef­fer­son Coun­ties and north­west­ern Grays Har­bor Coun­ty with the nat­ur­al bor­der of Chehalis Riv­er, includ­ing Aberdeen north of the Chehalis Riv­er and the cities of Port Ange­les, Hoquiam, and Port Townsend. HD 47 is a tossup-to-lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict that has the 3rd largest Native Amer­i­can pop­u­la­tion (7.2%) of the pro­posed house dis­tricts by includ­ing the Makah and Quin­ault Indi­an Reser­va­tions as well as rur­al sec­tion of Clal­lam, Jef­fer­son and Grays Har­bor coun­ties as well as the towns of Port Ange­les, Hoquiam, Forks, and Ocean Shores. HD 48 is a more com­pact & afflu­ent, less diverse (90.5% white) lean-to-like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict cen­tered around the cities of Port Townsend and Sequim.

(Aside: Like the 19th SD, accord­ing to the per­for­mance of Oba­ma and Mur­ray, you’d expect this area to be a lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict, mod­er­ate-to-con­ser­v­a­tive Democ­rats have been elect­ed here for a long time by com­fort­able margins.)

25th SD: Lean-to-like­ly Repub­li­can Pierce Coun­ty dis­trict cen­tered around Puyallup and unin­cor­po­rat­ed Taco­ma sub­urbs of South Hill, Waller and Fred­er­ick­son. Both HD 49 and HD 50 are lean-to-like­ly Repub­li­can dis­tricts, but are com­posed of Puyallup and South Hill (west) and Waller and Fred­er­ick­son (east), respectively.

26th SD: Like­ly-to-safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pierce Coun­ty dis­trict in north­ern Taco­ma (exclud­ing the Hill­top area), Gig Har­bor and Fir­crest. I cre­at­ed a major­i­ty-minor­i­ty dis­trict in south­ern Taco­ma (SD 29) and did­n’t want to split Taco­ma into more than 2 SDs, which result­ed in this 79% white dis­trict. HD 51 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing the Taco­ma neigh­bor­hoods of North­east Taco­ma, New Taco­ma, and North End, while HD 52 is a tossup dis­trict includ­ing Fir­crest, Gig Har­bor, the unin­cor­po­rat­ed Arton­dale area, Fox Island, and Taco­ma’s West End neighborhood.

27th SD: Tossup-to-lean Repub­li­can dis­trict with the larg­er cities of Bre­mer­ton and Port Orchard and rur­al areas in south­ern Kit­sap and Pierce Coun­ties on the Kit­sap Penin­su­la. This area saw some of the small­est drop-offs in Demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance when com­par­ing the results of Oba­ma in 2008 and Mur­ray in 2010, which is like­ly due to the large mil­i­tary (naval) pres­ence in the Bre­mer­ton area and Mur­ray’s work on vet­er­ans’ issues. HD 53 is a tossup dis­trict cen­tered around Bre­mer­ton, while HD 54 is a lean Repub­li­can dis­trict includ­ing Port Orchard. It’s the only dis­trict to cross the Pierce-Kit­sap line (which result­ed in it being some­what odd-shaped).

28th SD: Lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic sub­ur­ban Pierce Coun­ty dis­trict between Taco­ma and Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM), includ­ing the cities of Lake­wood and Uni­ver­si­ty Place and unin­cor­po­rat­ed com­mu­ni­ties in Park­land and Spanaway. Also includ­ed a small part of JBLM to have a more com­pact dis­trict, but not nec­es­sary. HD 55 is the south­ern, more diverse (less than 56% white) lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing parts of Lake­wood, Park­land and Spanaway, while HD 56 is the north­ern lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing all of Uni­ver­si­ty Place and part of Lakewood.

29th SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty-minor­i­ty sen­ate dis­trict in south­ern Taco­ma, Fife, and unin­cor­po­rat­ed com­mu­ni­ties in Park­land and Mid­land. Both HD 57 (south) and HD 58 (north) are safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house districts.

30th SD: Like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic King Coun­ty dis­trict that’s prin­ci­pal­ly Fed­er­al Way, most of Des Moines, and unin­cor­po­rat­ed Lake­land com­mu­ni­ties. It’s worth not­ing that all of Des Moines can’t be in the same dis­trict since both Sen. Eide (LD-30) and Sen. Kaiser (LD-33) live in Des Moines and weren’t up for elec­tion in 2012. HD 59 is a lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic, less diverse (57.5% white) dis­trict in south­ern Fed­er­al Way and unin­cor­po­rat­ed Lake­land South, while HD 60 is a like­ly-to-safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic more diverse (52.4% white) dis­trict in north­ern Fed­er­al Way, most of Des Moines, and unin­cor­po­rat­ed Lake­land North.

31st SD: Like­ly-to-safe Repub­li­can rural/suburban dis­trict with in south­east­ern King Coun­ty and east­ern Pierce Coun­ties and the mod­est­ly-sized cities of Buck­ley, Maple Val­ley, Black Dia­mond, Enum­claw, and Sno­qualmie. HD 61 is a safe Repub­li­can dis­trict that cross­es the King-Pierce Coun­ty line, tak­ing in Enum­claw and Buck­ley plus the unin­cor­po­rat­ed com­mu­ni­ties of Prairie Ridge and Lake Mor­ton-Berry­dale. HD 62 is a lean Repub­li­can King Coun­ty dis­trict that includes Black Dia­mond, Maple Val­ley, Sno­qualmie and North Bend. A strong Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date could poten­tial­ly turn HD 62 into a tossup district.

32nd SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic south­east Sno­homish Coun­ty encom­pass­ing the cities of Edmonds, Lyn­nwood, and Mount­lake Ter­race, which often help King Coun­ty car­ry the state. HD 63 is a fair­ly diverse (59% white) safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict cen­tered around Lyn­nwood, while HD 64 is a much less diverse (76.5% white) safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing Edmonds, Mount­lake Ter­race, and Woodway.

33rd SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic King Coun­ty major­i­ty-minor­i­ty sen­ate dis­trict tak­ing in the cities of Burien, SeaT­ac, Tuk­wila, and the north­ern tip of Des Moines. HD 65 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic, much-less diverse (56% white) dis­trict includ­ing Burien, Nor­mandy Park, the north­ern tip of Des Moines and the unin­cor­po­rat­ed White Cen­ter com­mu­ni­ty, while HD 66 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house dis­trict (36% white) includ­ing SeaT­ac, Tuk­wila, and unin­cor­po­rat­ed River­ton-Boule­vard Park and Bryn Mawr-Sky­way communities.

34th SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing the Seat­tle neigh­bor­hoods of Down­town, West Seat­tle, Del­ridge, George­town, South Park, and Bea­con Hill west of Bea­con Ave as well as Vashon Island. HD 67 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing West Seat­tle and Vashon Island, while HD 68 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house dis­trict includ­ing the Seat­tle neigh­bor­hoods of Down­town, George­town, Del­ridge, South Park, and Bea­con Hill west of Bea­con Ave.

35th SD: Tossup-to-lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict con­tain­ing all of Mason Coun­ty, west­ern Thurston Coun­ty, and south­east­ern Grays Har­bor Coun­ty, includ­ing Mon­te­sano, Cos­mopo­lis, and Elma. HD 69 is a lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict cross­ing the Grays Har­bor-Thurston coun­ty line, includ­ing Tumwa­ter, Mon­te­sano, Cos­mopo­lis, and Elma, while HD 70 is a tossup dis­trict span­ning all of Mason Coun­ty, as well as a small amount of unin­cor­po­rat­ed north­west­ern Thurston County.

36th SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic Seat­tle dis­trict west of High­way 99 (also known as Auro­ra Avenue) includ­ing the neigh­bor­hoods of Bal­lard, Queen Anne, Inter­bay, and Mag­no­lia. HD 71 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict encom­pass­ing the neigh­bor­hoods of Fre­mont, West­lake, Queen Anne, Inter­bay, and Mag­no­lia, while HD 72 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict that spans the neigh­bor­hoods of Bal­lard, Phin­ney Ridge, North Beach/Blue Ridge, Crown Hill, and Greewood.

37th SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic south­east Seat­tle major­i­ty-minor­i­ty sen­ate dis­trict, includ­ing the neigh­bor­hoods of Rainier Val­ley, Seward Park, Cen­tral Area and Bea­con Hill east of Bea­con Ave. HD 73 is a very diverse (28% white) safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house dis­trict, includ­ing the neigh­bor­hoods of Rainier Val­ley, Seward Park, and Bea­con Hill east of Bea­con Ave, while HD 74 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing the neigh­bor­hoods of Cen­tral Area and Madi­son Park.

38th SD: Like­ly-to-safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sno­homish Coun­ty dis­trict includ­ing the cities of Everett and Muk­il­teo. HD 75 is a like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing all of Muk­il­teo, Everett neigh­bor­hoods south of High­way 526, and unin­cor­po­rat­ed com­mu­ni­ties of Lake Stick­ney and Pic­nic Point-North Lyn­nwood, while HD 76 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict near­ly exclu­sive­ly in the city of Everett north of SR 526.

39th SD: Lean Repub­li­can mul­ti-coun­ty dis­trict (tak­ing in areas of King & Sno­homish) includ­ing the Cas­cade foothill cities of Mon­roe, Gran­ite Falls, Car­na­tion, and Duvall. HD 77 is a like­ly Repub­li­can Sno­homish Coun­ty dis­trict includ­ing Gran­ite Falls, Mon­roe, and unin­cor­po­rat­ed com­mu­ni­ties of Canyon Creek, Three Lakes, and Woods Creek, while HD 78 is a tossup dis­trict cross­ing the King-Sno­homish Coun­ty Line includ­ing the cities of Duvall, Car­na­tion, Sul­tan, and Skykomish and the unin­cor­po­rat­ed com­mu­ni­ty of Maltby.

40th SD: Lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict con­tain­ing all of San Juan Coun­ty, coastal Skag­it Coun­ty — prin­ci­pal­ly Ana­cortes, Burling­ton and Sedro-Wool­ley — and Whid­bey Island in Island Coun­ty. HD 79 is a like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing all of San Juan Coun­ty and the cities of Ana­cortes, Burling­ton, and Sedro-Wool­ley in Skag­it Coun­ty, while HD 80 is a tossup dis­trict though there was a very small drop-offs in Demo­c­ra­t­ic per­for­mance when com­par­ing the results of Oba­ma in 2008 and Mur­ray in 2010 (only 2.4%), which is like­ly due to the large mil­i­tary (naval air­fields) pres­ence on Whid­bey Island and Mur­ray’s work on vet­er­ans’ issues.

41st SD: Tossup afflu­ent exur­ban dis­trict con­tain­ing Issaquah, Sam­mamish, and the unin­cor­po­rat­ed East Ren­ton High­lands. HD 81 is a tossup-to-lean Repub­li­can dis­trict includ­ing the city of Sam­mamish and unin­cor­po­rat­ed com­mu­ni­ties of Union Hill-Nov­el­ty Hill and Kla­hanie, while HD 82 is a tossup-to-lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic cen­tered around the city of Issaquah and unin­cor­po­rat­ed com­mu­ni­ties of East Ren­ton High­lands, Fair­wood, and Maple Heights-Lake Desire.

42nd SD: Safe Repub­li­can rur­al What­com, Skag­it, and north­ern Sno­homish Coun­ty dis­trict with the only major cities being Mount Ver­non and Lyn­den. HD 83 is a very safe Repub­li­can dis­trict cen­tered around Lyn­den, while HD 84 is a tossup-to-lean Repub­li­can dis­trict with the mod­er­ate­ly-sized city of Mount Ver­non and low-pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty Cas­cade foothills areas of Skag­it, east­ern What­com, and north­ern Sno­homish Counties.

43rd SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic Seat­tle dis­trict cen­tered around the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, Seat­tle’s largest employ­er. HD 85 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing the Seat­tle neigh­bor­hoods of Green Lake, Maple Leaf, Win­der­mere, and Lau­rel­hurst, while HD 86 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing the Seat­tle neigh­bor­hoods of Walling­ford, Uni­ver­si­ty Dis­trict and Capi­tol Hill.

44th SD: Tossup Sno­homish Coun­ty dis­trict that takes in the cities of Lake Stevens, Sno­homish, and Mill Creek. HD 87 is a tossup-to-lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict cen­tered around Mill Creek, while HD 88 is a tossup-to-lean Repub­li­can dis­trict includ­ing the cities of Lake Stevens and Snohomish.

45th SD: Like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict con­tain­ing only Kirk­land and Red­mond. HD 89 is a like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict entire­ly with­in the city of Kirk­land, while HD 90 con­tains all of Red­mond, the Kings­gate area of Kirk­land, and some of the unin­cor­po­rat­ed com­mu­ni­ty of Union Hill-Nov­el­ty Hill. It is impor­tant to note that social­ly lib­er­al Repub­li­cans have done well in afflu­ent East­side (of Lake Wash­ing­ton) areas, like those includ­ed in these dis­tricts, but Red­mond and Kirk­land have been vot­ing far more con­sis­tent­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic since 2006 than they used to.

46th SD: Safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing Shore­line, Lake For­est Park, and the Seat­tle neigh­bor­hoods of Wedge­wood, Lake City, North­gate, and Broad­view. HD 91 is safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing the cities of Shore­line and Lake For­est Park and the Seat­tle neigh­bor­hood of Cedar Park, while HD 92 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic Seat­tle dis­trict span­ning the neigh­bor­hoods of Wedge­wood, Broad­view, Bit­ter Lake, Haller Lake, Pine­hurst, and Lake City.

47th SD: Tossup-to-lean Repub­li­can sub­ur­ban King-Pierce Coun­ty dis­trict encom­pass­ing Auburn, Mil­ton, Sum­n­er, and Bon­ney Lake. HD 93 is a tossup-to-lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic King Coun­ty dis­trict includ­ing all of Algo­na and the King Coun­ty por­tion of Auburn (which is 90% of the city), while HD 94 is a like­ly Repub­li­can King-Pierce dis­trict includ­ing the cities of Sum­n­er, Edge­wood, and Bon­ney Lake, as well as the Pierce Coun­ty por­tion of Auburn and both Mil­ton and Pacif­ic, which have the dis­tinc­tion of also being in mul­ti­ple counties.

48th SD: Like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict con­tain­ing the very afflu­ent com­mu­ni­ty of Mer­cer Island, the very wealthy city of Med­i­na and the afflu­ent neigh­bor­hoods of north­ern Belle­vue. Despite Oba­ma and Mur­ray’s strong per­for­mance in this dis­trict, social­ly lib­er­al Repub­li­cans have done well here for a long time. HD 95 is a lean Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict includ­ing the extreme­ly wealthy small sub­urbs at the east­ern end of the Ever­green Point Float­ing Bridge includ­ing Med­i­na, Clyde Hill, Hunts Point, Yarrow Point, as well as Mer­cer Island and west­ern Belle­vue. On the oth­er hand, HD 96 is a like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict in east­ern Belle­vue — only 55.6% white.

49th SD: Lean-to-like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict con­sist­ing of west­ern Van­cou­ver (and its unin­cor­po­rat­ed sub­urbs, which fall under the juris­dic­tion of Clark Coun­ty). HD 97 is a tossup dis­trict com­posed of the unin­cor­po­rat­ed Van­cou­ver sub­urbs includ­ing Wal­nut Grove, Fel­i­da, and Min­neha­ha as well as part of the city itself, while HD 98 is a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict that’s near­ly com­plete­ly with­in Vancouver.

My Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate redis­trict­ing plan splits only six cities that did­n’t need to be, based on size, with those being: Aberdeen, Belle­vue, Coulee Dam, Des Moines, Yaki­ma, and Ken­newick (slight­ly for trans­porta­tion-con­nec­tiv­i­ty). This is only one more city than Milem’s leg­isla­tive redis­trict­ing plan.

In addi­tion, my plan splits only four coun­ties: Dou­glas, Grays Har­bor, Island, and Skag­it, while Milem split only one unnec­es­sary coun­ty — Skag­it. Milem, though in my opin­ion, failed to have con­tigu­ous, i.e. con­nect­ed by trans­porta­tion, leg­isla­tive dis­trict for his dis­trict includ­ing Island Coun­ty, since there is no means of trans­porta­tion between Camano and Whid­bey Islands.

To the ques­tion as to whether this map, as well as sin­gle-mem­ber house dis­tricts, result in a greater num­ber of dis­tricts where minori­ties have a good chance of being elect­ed, the num­bers bear it out. In the Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion’s map, with mul­ti-mem­ber dis­ticts, there are only 4 major­i­ty-minor­i­ty sen­ate dis­tricts, and there­fore only 8 house seats in dis­tricts that are majority-minority.

There’s one dis­trict (two House seats) with a white pop­u­la­tion between fifty per­cent and fifty-five per­cent and two dis­tricts (four House seats) with a white pop­u­la­tion between fifty-five per­cent and six­ty percent.

On the oth­er hand, my Sen­ate plan results in five major­i­ty-minor­i­ty sen­ate dis­tricts (a twen­ty-five per­cent increase over the Com­mis­sion’s plan), three Sen­ate dis­tricts with a white pop­u­la­tion between fifty per­cent and fifty-five per­cent (a two hun­dred per­cent increase) and one Sen­ate dis­trict with a white pop­u­la­tion between fifty-five and six­ty per­cent (a fifty per­cent decrease).

My House plan results in twelve major­i­ty-minor­i­ty house dis­tricts (a fifty per­cent increase), two House dis­tricts with a white pop­u­la­tion between fifty and fifty-five per­cent (no change), and sev­en House dis­tricts (a sev­en­ty-five per­cent increase). That’s a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence from what we have now.

To sum­ma­rize: My Sen­ate map would result in few­er divid­ed “com­mu­ni­ties of inter­est” (in this case minori­ties). My sin­gle-mem­ber House map would give minor­i­ty Wash­ing­to­ni­ans a bet­ter chance of get­ting elect­ed to the Legislature.

So there’s my plan for what I con­sid­er to be a con­sti­tu­tion­al alter­na­tive to Milem’s plan. If peo­ple in Wash­ing­ton state would like sin­gle-mem­ber House dis­tricts, then the time is now to change the law, as it’ll give law­mak­ers a long time to pre­pare for pos­si­bly being dis­trict­ed-out before the 2021 redis­trict­ing process.

If peo­ple are con­cerned about the undue influ­ence that incum­bents can have on the Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion, as doc­u­ment­ed by The News Tri­bune of Taco­ma last year, Wash­ing­ton should con­sid­er adopt­ing the lan­guage that Iowa has, as for­mer Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of State Sam Reed dis­cussed, and stip­u­late that redis­trict­ing will be done “with­out regard to par­ty and incumbency”.