The Idaho Supreme Court has rejected the state’s newest map for redrawing legislative districts, a decision that sends the bipartisan committee that developed the plan last year back to work on a tight deadline with just five weeks before the official start of election season. In a 4-1 decision, the justices scrapped a plan approved in October by the second of two citizen committees charged with reshaping Idaho’s legislative districts to more accurately reflect population shifts across the state in the last decade. Several counties filed lawsuits challenging aspects of the plan, but Wednesday’s decision focused specifically on complaints cited by Twin Falls County. Leaders from the south-central corner of the state argued that its voters would be put at a disadvantage because the map split the county into two separate legislative districts.
Earlier this month, Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs told justices that the state constitution grants the redistricting commission latitude to split counties only in cases when it’s necessary to meet the one-person, one-vote federal standard. Any additional splitting, even to keep communities together, is unnecessary, he said. Read more at Argus Observer.
Argus News
By Todd Dvorak
Associated Press