Spin Control: In drawing new lines for Washington’s congressional districts, consider trading Walla Walla for Okanogan County

The Washington Redistricting Commission’s once-per-decade task of redrawing the state’s congressional and legislative boundaries is guaranteed to not please everybody.

By definition, the drawing of boundaries means one district is going to stop on one side of a line and another is going to start on the other side.

But if the testimony from the commission’s recent meeting on Eastern Washington’s 5th Congressional District is any indication, there are two groups of people who deserve special attention by the commission in this go-round, based on what happened in the previous slicing of the state’s electoral pie.

At the top of the list are the Colville Confederated Tribes, whose reservation is split between the 5th District and the neighboring 4th District for Central Washington. One of the rules for drawing congressional lines is keeping “communities of interest” together, and it’s hard to argue that splitting a reservation adheres to that rule.

Strictly from a cartographic point of view, that line might have made sense in 2011 to commissioners – none of whom was from East of the Cascades – when they decided to have the congressional line follow the boundary between Ferry and Okanogan counties. So one could argue the previous commission kept the communities of interest that are each in a separate county together, even though it divided the reservation.

Others could argue the reservation has long had its political clout split by the county line, and the commission merely reinforced that.

A close second are the residents of Walla Walla County, which is divided between the two congressional districts. Walla Wallans – that’s what they call themselves, according to people who testified at the meeting – argued they have much more in common with residents of the Tri-Cities and Yakima than with Spokane, and should all be in the 4th.

One suggestion was to change the way the two districts are divided. For decades, the line of demarcation has run more or less north and south, from the Canadian border to Oregon. In the middle of the last century, the line ran more east and west, from the Cascades to Idaho, with Spokane County in the northern half while Yakima and the Tri-Cities were in the southern half.

The change was a result of several factors, including Western Washington growing much faster than Eastern Washington and the state gaining congressional seats.

Maybe it’s time to try more of a diagonal approach, northwest to southeast, adding Okanogan County to the 5th, all of Walla Walla to the 4th, then juggling contiguous rural counties until they get the correct population number in each district. Might not work, but we won’t really know until the Census Bureau releases the numbers from the 2020 headcount.

They were supposed to be delivered in early April. Latest word is they’ll be available in mid-August.

One complaint heard at the commission meeting was the use of streets as the dividing line between legislative districts. One Spokane resident noted when he drives down Saltese Lake Road, people on one side of the road are in the 4th Legislative District and those on the other are in the 9th Legislative District.

As someone who once lived on a street that was the dividing line between the 6th and the 3rd legislative districts, I can relate. But when I mentioned that to a legislator who was doorbelling in the area, he pointed out that wherever the lines are drawn, that’s going to happen to someone, and at least streets are easily recognizable, unlike some other demarcations like property lines.

One interesting exchange during the redistricting commission’s meeting happened when Brian McClatchey, who serves on the Spokane County Redistricting Commission, spoke in favor of keeping the Colville Confederated Tribes in the same congressional district.

But Joe Fain, a member of the state redistricting commission, wanted to check whether he’d heard correctly that state law will put the burden of drawing lines for the five new Spokane County districts on the state commission if the county redistricting commissioners can’t reach an agreement. That’s right, McClatchey said.

So, Fain asked, how’s that going?

Moving along cooperatively and collaboratively, McClatchey replied. “We have a strong interest in drawing the lines here in Spokane County.”

Good to hear, Fain said. “We are optimistic and hopeful that you will be drawing those lines, and not anybody else.”