The Daily Hatch

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

(Video from Robybrock) State Sen. Gilbert Baker discusses moving a portion of Pulaski Co. into Arkansas’ Fourth Congressional District.

New Series on 2012 Congressional Districts Part 1

John Brummett in his article “New day confronts congressional districts,” (Arkansas News Bureau, Feb 3, 2011), asserts:

We now have three Republicans in these four congressional seats. We have Republicans composing more than 40 percent of the Arkansas General Assembly that must redraw the districts in this session. We have a Senate State Agencies Committee, which will consider the matter, that consists of four Democrats and four Republicans.

Based on still-preliminary numbers and generous rounding, we have the 1st District needing to gain about 50,000 persons; the 2nd District needing to lose about 15,000; the growth hotbed of the 3rd District needing to lose about 110,000; and the 4th District across southern Arkansas needing to gain about 75,000.

Now let me make an observation. The 2010 Congressional election proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that both Central Arkansas and North West Arkansas voted in Republican Congressmen with large margins. It seems that 125,000 of these voters from these two districts have to be moved to the other two districts (50,000 to 1st where Republican Rick Crawford won close race and 75,000 to 4th where Democrat Mike Ross won with 57% of the vote).  

Brummett does know how it will all settle out but he puts out a educated guess:

If Democrats eventually settle on a compromise designed to do as little damage as possible, it probably will look this way:

The 1st District would be extended westward across northern Arkansas all the way to Marion and Boone counties (arch-conservative Harrison, that is to say) and into a portion of Carroll County, then trade Cleburne County to the 2nd District in exchange for Van Buren County.

The 2nd, which need not change much, would be taken care of by that Cleburne-Van Buren trade and by losing Yell County and a sliver of Perry County to the 4th District.

The population-exploding 3rd District would constrict around Washington and Benton Counties but keep Fort Smith and Sebastian County.

The 4th would reach northward to pick up Franklin and Johnson counties (Ozark, Clarksville) from the 3rd District and Yell County and that sliver of Perry County from the 2nd.

The real gamble will be if the Democrats try to make a run at the 2nd district. I think that Tim Griffin has a bigger margin of victory now with the rapid growth of Saline County and Faulkner County to work with, and it would take a lot to put him at a disadvantage.