Tagged: redistricting

Wyoming's attorney general wants a district judge in Cheyenne to dismiss a lawsuit fighting the state's redistricting plan.

Greg Phillips filed the state's response last week, arguing the proper procedures weren't followed to qualify the seven plaintiffs to be eligible for a class-action suit.

The residents sued earlier this month in Laramie County District Court to try to overturn the Legislature's recently adopted redistricting work. They argue the plan doesn't adequately represent some of the state's more sparsely populated counties.

A group of citizens has filed a lawsuit
challenging Wyoming's newly adopted legislative redistricting plan.
     The lawsuit charges that state lawmakers bent over backward to
make sure incumbent state senators didn't have to run against each
other and accuses the plan of failing to give less-populous
counties fair representation.
     The lawsuit filed Thursday in Laramie County District Court
seeks to block Gov. Matt Mead and the other four statewide elected
officials from implementing the redistricting plan.
     Gillette lawyer Nick Carter represents the plaintiffs. He says
hopes to get the lawsuit certified straight to the Wyoming Supreme
Court.
     Sen. Cale Case, a Lander Republican, served as co-chairman of

The State Senate has given initial approval to a bill that redraws legislative districts.  The House of Representatives added an amendment to the redistricting measure that protected the seat of Senator Curt Meier.  This fall a joint committee told Meier his Senate seat would be combined with one in Laramie County and he’d have to run against Senator Wayne Johnson in order to keep his seat. 

However,Corporations Committee Chairman Cale Case said the amendment did not sit well with him and he asked the Senate to vote it down.  But Casper Senator Charles Scott liked the amendment because it preserves a Goshen County lawmaker.

The Chairman of a Committee redrawing state legislative districts admits he is not pleased with a House Amendment that preserved the seat of a State Senator from Goshen and Platte Counties.  Senate Corporations and Political Subdivisions Chairman Cale Case says he may try and remove that amendment. "That long strip that goes up along the Nebraska border and captures the prison and puts it down with a district in Cheyenne -- we are legitimately open to a little criticism on that and I will probably try and remove that in the Senate," Case said. That amendment keeps Senator Curt Meier from getting pushed into the same Senate District as current Senator Wayne Johnson.  Case says there is probably no other way they could draw the lines to protect Meier’s seat. 

The Wyoming House of Representatives gave final approval to a new legislative redistricting plan Friday.  It makes subtle changes across the state,and House members voted to accept a plan that also keeps Senators Curt Meier and Wayne Johnson from being combined into one Senate seat. 

Representative Pete Illoway oversaw the House effort and he admits he has mixed emotions about what they did to preserve the Senate seats.

“I’m not ecstatic about it," Illoway said. "But it’s a better solution than we probably had.  It’s better than having a floor fight and then losing what we’ve already gained.”

Illoway does expect that the Senate will strongly consider some changes in southwest Wyoming that seemed to concern Senators in that part of the state.

A House Committee has approved a new plan for Wyoming’s new legislative districts, which would restore Senator Curt Meier’s seat.  Previously the committee told Meier that despite having two years left on his term, he would have to give up his seat and be moved into a district with Senator Wayne Johnson who lives in Laramie County.  But Meier offered an amendment that was adopted by the committee incorporating the non-voting prison population in Torrington to grab the necessary population.    Casper Representative Tim Stubson noted that it not only preserved a Senate seat, it achieved other objectives as well.  “It’s a locally driven plan, it was a plan area legislator’s and folks were in support of," Stubson said.

A panel of Wyoming lawmakers has endorsed a statewide plan for redrawing legislative districts that would leave one eastern Wyoming state senator out of a job.

The Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee unanimously approved a redistricting plan Thursday in Cheyenne. The redistricting is in response to population changes reflected in the latest census.

The redistricting plan would put the residence of Sen. Curt Meier, a Goshen County Republican, into a district represented by Sen. Wayne Johnson, a Laramie County Republican. The committee voted to allow Meier to serve out two years remaining in his term.

The plan also would place two pairs of Republican state representatives into the same districts.

Lawmakers have approved plans to redraw Wyoming's legislative districts, allocating more lawmakers to central and western areas of the state that have gained population while drawing them away from some other places.

The plan approved by the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee on Tuesday would extend one state Senate district from Cheyenne north into the southern Goshen County community of LaGrange, home of Republican Sen. Curt Meier.

Meier says he plans to oppose that change when the committee meets in Cheyenne in January.

Some lawmakers in far western Wyoming also are unhappy with proposals to cut the Star Valley into several separate legislative districts.