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Opinion
Redistricting work taking place in Legislature
Thursday, September 30, 2021
Last week was a long and interesting week at the capitol. In my last article, I talked about the redistricting maps in LB 3 and LB 4 and of course things have changed in the legislature since then. As I write this article, I am relatively confident that the final legislative map will be very similar to the map we passed last Thursday.
Chase, Dundy, Hayes, Hitchcock, Frontier, Gosper, Dawson, and the southwest quarter of Perkins, including the city of Grant, will make up the new 44th legislative district. Red Willow, Furnas and Harlan will join Franklin, Webster, Nuckolls and Clay Counties to make up the 38th legislative district, which is currently represented by Dave Murman of Glenville. Senator Murman is up for reelection and has indicated that he will run again in 2022.
The balance of Perkins county will become part of district 42, as well as Hooker, Thomas, McPherson, Logan and Lincoln Counties. District 42 is currently represented by Mike Groene of North Platte, but he will be term-limited out in 2022 so the residents of the new District 42 will be able to vote on a new senator during the next election.
We were also able to come to a consensus on 5 other maps; Supreme Court, Board of Education, Board of Regents, Public Service Commission and Congressional. The Congressional map changes did not affect anyone west of Grand Island.
If you were watching the process live, you were not able to see the full effect of what was taking place. There were many conversations happening among the Redistricting committee members, who then consulted with our other colleagues. This is not an easy process, each time you move one boundary line it can greatly affect another area.
In addition to the Redistricting Committee and staff, I want to especially thank our Legislative Research Office staff for all of their hard work. They worked late into the night on many evenings and also put in 7-day work weeks.
I am writing this article on Monday so hopefully, on Thursday we will have this all decided but as with everything in the Legislature, this is subject to change.