Redistricting plan hits bump in the road

By Sarah Pridgeon

Senator Ogden Driskill was feeling optimistic about the redistricting plan he helped devise for northeast Wyoming, which would have seen both Crook and Weston Counties form the basis of their own voting districts.

That was, he says, until the counties to the south threw a wrench in the works.

Driskill says he was excluded from discussions about redistricting when he was specifically asked not to attend a meeting for Region 7, one of the eight districts into which Wyoming has been divided for the purposes of redistricting.

Region 6 includes Crook along with Weston and Campbell Counties, while Region 7 includes Converse, Goshen, Niobrara and Platte. Region 6 had reached a tentative agreement on how to divide its voting districts, but Region 7 has had less success.

“The committee had asked for Regions 6 and 7 to get together and come up with a plan, but the person who was putting it on asked me not to attend the meeting,” Driskill says.

“They then presented a new plan that was totally from Region 7’s standpoint without any input from Crook or Weston County.”

Region 6 has had a relatively easy time figuring out how to split things up, Driskill says. His preference from the beginning has been for Crook County in its entirety to form the basis of one district, and for the same to occur with Weston County.

This differs from the current situation, which splits Weston County in half and places the northern section into a district with Crook County and the southern portion with Niobrara. In the new plan, both Crook and Weston would combine with small portions of Campbell County.

Crook County would join with the northeastern section of Campbell (comprised of two voting districts), which would create an “almost ideal” district. Weston County would join the southeastern part of Campbell County (not including Wright.)

Redistricting occurs every ten years to address geographical changes across Wyoming. It works on the “one man, one vote” principle as decreed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In other words, every person’s vote should have exactly the same weight and importance, which means every legislator needs to represent the same number of people. The perfect situation would see every House district contain 9614 people, which would divide Wyoming into 60 equal portions.

Unfortunately, it’s virtually impossible to be quite that accurate, so the aim of the redistricting process will be to achieve district sizes within 10% of that number.

The Region 6 plan would achieve this, but Driskill explains that the problem comes when you put Regions 6 and 7 together. If you don’t split Weston County, he says, then another county will have to have three splits in it.

“That county would either be Campbell, Converse or Goshen,” he says. “Campbell had originally had put all theirs together so they had five House reps, but I think at this point they’re willing to take four and a piece of two others.”

Driskill’s plan would have seen his own seat reshuffled to cover part of Campbell County instead of part of Weston County. That’s fine, he says – he’s willing to be as flexible as necessary if it means keeping Weston County whole.

“I think Campbell is willing to do that at this point,” he says. “Campbell County is reasonably flexible. The real problem we’ve got is in Region 7.”

Region 7 has seen considerably more conflict during the negotiation process than Region 6.

“Where the thing is falling part is that Goshen County absolutely does not want to share with Laramie County on a representative and they almost have to to make the plan work,” Driskill says.

“Converse County is unwilling to take anything other than having it their way and then the very last piece is that Niobrara County would rather be seated to the south with Converse, Goshen and Platte Counties than to be seated with Weston County.”

It should be advantageous that the counties of Region 6 are in relative alignment, but so far it hasn’t been, Driskill says. The plan Region 7 came up with during the meeting Driskill was excluded from would see Weston County cut in half and Campbell sharing one of its representatives with Converse.

“It would leave Weston without a realistic chance of either a Senate seat or a House Representative,” Driskill says.

In almost any scenario, every county in Wyoming but Niobrara and Hot Springs ends up with either its own senator or representative, Driskill says. Neither has enough citizens for even half a representative, he points out, so that’s understandable.

But Weston County has seven tenths of the population needed for a representative.

“It’s really unfair to tell them that they get no representative at all while another county gets multiple representatives at their expense,” he says.

The way Driskill sees it, Weston County has already spent ten years split into two – it’s only fair for it to be somebody else’s turn for the next decade.

Crook County is likely to remain whole whatever decisions are made, says Driskill, because its two state lines make it difficult to cut it up without messing up the plan for the rest of the state.

“That’s fortunate for Crook, because if it wasn’t for that we would probably have some real troubles,” he says.

However, he points out that Crook will still need to pair with one of its two neighbors and that will strongly affect how this county can do business.

Driskill believes he was deliberately left out of the conversation after he was told that the meeting was just going to be for Region 7.

“I found out ten minutes before the meeting that they had invited all of Campbell County’s senators and representatives and Representative [Chip] Neiman, but they had excluded me from Weston County’s piece. That’s just not how we do business in Wyoming, it’s tragic to see those things happen,” he says.

“Not only that, but I’m the committee chairman.”

“I feel really like I got shut out of the process,” he adds. “I’m a senior senator, I’ve been here a long time and to have that happen is unconscionable.”

Redistricting is always a controversial discussion.

“There is absolutely no way to make everybody happy with this plan. It’s not possible, there’s always going to be somebody who is treated, in their eyes, unfairly,” he says.

“We’re trying to come up with a happy medium where everyone can have something they’re reasonably happy with and we’ve still got a decent plan. I’m praying we can come up with that.”

Only a few counties have the precise populations to be able to keep their districts within county lines. These, Driskill says, include Sheridan, Johnson, Natrona and Albany.

“For the rest of us, we all have to make compromises to make things work,” he says.

Driskill says he has gone back to the drawing board to come up with a revised plan and hopes to make progress at the December 28 meeting, which is his last chance to do so before the 2022 Legislative Session.

If he is unable to successfully fight Weston County’s corner, he says, he will be left with only one option: to introduce an amendment on the floor when the full legislature discusses the plan.