Political landscape is about to change

Take a good last look before the
lines change

Redistricting maps released today
By Will Collette

The ultimate "inside baseball" political junkie's hot topic comes up every ten years in the year after the US Census numbers are released. The districts for state Senators and Representatives must be adjusted to make them equal in population. Because population tends to change a lot over ten years, every legislative district has to be changed accordingly.

Last April, I wrote about how the new census numbers for South County were going to cause changes to the districts of all our local legislators. This is what the House district map looked like after the 2000 census which is what the map looks like now::

Charlestown is represented in the House by Rep. Donna Walsh (D-district 36) and Rep. Larry Valencia (D-district 39. Their districts are abutted by District 37, Sam Azzinaro (D); District 38, Brian Patrick Kennedy (D); District 35, Spencer Dickinson (D) and District 34, Teresa Tanzi (D).

Donna Walsh's district lost population, as did Teresa Tanzi's, so both will need to take some territory from their neighbors who all saw their populations grow.

There are two proposed changes to the House district map. Here is House Version A:

This version would concentrate Donna Walsh's district on Charlestown while shortening the ends (Westerly and South Kingstown). If you look at the present map, Donna's district looks a bit like a set of barbells. House Version A makes District 36 look more coherent, or at least like an Idaho potato. Teresa Tanzi's District would expand westward to take a good chunk of Donna's current constituency in South Kingstown.

Here is the map for House Version B:

House Version B has almost the opposite effect for Donna, shifting most of her Charlestown constituency to Larry Valencia while expanding her district deeper into South Kingstown.

Tomorrow, I'll post the new Senate maps. There are three versions of those and the potential for big changes for Senator Dennis Algiere (R-Westerly) and Senator Sue Sosnowski (D-South Kingstown).

Then comes time to debate the merits of the various proposals and review what you can do to weigh in. This process will need to be completed by January so the 2012 election season can proceed with clear and recognized district boundaries.