National Democratic group joins legal battle to defend Oregon’s new congressional map

Oregon Republicans are livid over the congressional district map Democrats drew and approved, saying it is blatantly gerrymandered. (Mark Friesen / The Oregonian|OregonLive)
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Oregon’s new six-district congressional map is receiving national attention as a Democratic group pushes back against Republican claims that its political boundaries are gerrymandered.

In a filing Monday, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee urged a judicial panel to approve the map — which lawmakers passed during last month’s contentious special legislative session — insisting that the boundaries meet all legal standards, OPB reported.

“This map represents compromise not only because of how it was enacted — with Republicans and Democrats negotiating throughout the process — but also because it is a competitive map that is reflective of the state,” Kelly Burton, president of the NDRC, said in a statement.

The map, which every Republican lawmaker voted against, creates four safe Democratic districts and one that leans lightly blue and could be considered a toss-up along with one overwhelmingly Republican district. That means 83% of Oregon’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are likely to go to Democrats, even though Oregon voters gave Democrat Joe Biden just 56% of the vote in the 2020 presidential race.

With the filing, the national Democratic redistricting group is seeking to insert itself into the court fight that began last week, when former Secretary of State Bev Clarno and three other Republicans sued to challenge the map, which includes a new sixth congressional seat — increasing Oregon’s national political clout.

“The result of this highly partisan process is a clear, egregious partisan gerrymander, as has been widely acknowledged both in Oregon and across the country,” the Republican lawsuit said. “Democrats are projected to win five of the six of Oregon’s congressional seats in a typical year, results that are not even arguably justified by the Democrats’ overall political support in this state or the political geography of the state.”

Stakes were high for both Republicans and and Democrats during this year’s redistricting — a once-a-decade process that determines how voters pick state representatives, state senators and members of Congress for the next five election cycles. From U.S. Census delays, COVID-19 cases in the Legislature during the special session and accusations — from both sides of the aisle — of gerrymandering, there were substantial challenges.

But the most controversial moment of September’s redistricting session was when House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat, rescinded a power-sharing deal with GOP lawmakers. The agreement, reached in April, had given House Republicans veto power in redrawing political maps in exchange for them to stop blocking bills with delaying tactics.

But after the first day of the special session, Kotek voided the deal, saying Republicans weren’t engaging constructively.

Republicans said they were cheated and held a walkout — denying the House quorum to vote.

But they eventually returned to the session, because they wanted to pass compromise legislative district maps rather than have Democratic Secretary of State Shemia Fagan draw those.

The national Democrats’ filing doesn’t acknowledge that dynamic. Instead, it insists that Republicans returned to the session because House Republican Leader Christine Drazan negotiated a congressional map her GOP colleagues could at least stomach.

“The compromise map is the congressional redistricting plan that House Majority Leader (Christine) Drazan had acceded to in negotiations,” the filing says.

A panel made of up five retired circuit court judges from around the state will decide whether the state’s congressional maps are illegal and, if so, how they should be altered.

-- The Associated Press

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