More indications emerged last night that efforts of Republican Rep. Nelda Speaks and Sen. Jane English have combined to produce the likely new Arkansas congressional districts.
It won’t please all.
Key elements:
Pulaski County is split into not two, but three congressional districts, by sending some areas on the east and southeast of Little Rock and North Little Rock to the 1st and 4th Districts. Most of the county will remain in the 2nd District and Cleburne County will also be added to the 2nd. Pulaski, solidly Democratic to date, is being split for partisan reasons. It would have been easy to fix the small growth in the 2nd District without dividing Pulaski by lopping off Van Buren County.
Madison County will be added to the 3rd District for its closeness to Washington County. But Sebastian County will see its southern portion again shorn into the 4th District. Might as well. In 10 years, with continued growth in Washington and Benton Counties, the 3rd likely won’t be able to include Sebastian anyway.
Other unhappiness will include Sen. Breanne Davis, who wanted to move Pope County into the 2nd District by lopping off even more of Pulaski.
The House and Senate committees that consider redistricting will meet at 10:30 a.m. today. English’s SB 743, with the map shown here, is on the agenda. The same map is on the agenda in the House committee in Speaks’ HB 1982.
Here’s what the bills would move out of Pulaski:
To the 1st District: Precincts 47 (Jacksonville), 48 (McAlmont) and 52-55 (precincts in North Little Rock and Scott).
To the 4th District: Precincts 104 (Shannon Hills), 105 (Southwest Little Rock), 125-127 (from Baseline Road down Arch Street Pike south of Little Rock), 130-133 (College Station to Wrightsville) and 135 (Granite Mountain).
This division takes heavily minority neighborhoods out of the 2nd District to replace them with 93 percent white Cleburne County. Coincidence? I don’t think so.