House Speaker Tina Kotek is pulling back on a deal to grant minority Republicans equal say in the state’s new political maps.
OPB has learned that Kotek told her caucus on Monday that she would appoint a new committee, with Democrats outweighing Republicans, in order to pass a new congressional map likely to give Democrats control of five of the state’s six seats.
That’s contrary to an agreement the House speaker cut with Republicans earlier this year, when she agreed to give them parity on the House Redistricting Committee, thereby requiring some GOP buy-in for any plan the committee took up.
Kotek explained to her members in caucus that she’d hoped that even split would result in consensus, but that Republicans ultimately refused to grant a “courtesy” vote that would allow Democrats’ plan to pass out of committee and to the House floor, where Democrats could easily approve it.
The congressional plan being floated by Democrats has been decried by Republicans and others as an attempt to gerrymander the state. PlanScore, a tool that analyzes redistricting plans for partisan bias, found that the map is weighted in Democrats’ favor.
It’s unclear whether Kotek’s maneuver will work. Republicans could react to the breach of the earlier deal by walking away from the Capitol to deny Democrats a quorum. Democratic lawmakers used that move in 2001 in order to scuttle Republicans’ attempt to pass maps.
The move by the House Speaker comes after Senate Democrats easily advanced their new political maps through the chamber. In a series of party-line votes, the party approved the two redistricting bills, Senate bills 881 and 882. before adjourning for the session shortly after 2 p.m. Monday.
“We believe it is a fair and balanced map,” state Sen. Kathleen Taylor, D-Portland, the chair of the Senate Redistricting Committee, said of the congressional map. “We’re going to go ahead and see how things proceed.”
Both bills passed the Senate on an 18-11 vote, with Republicans in lockstep against.
An analysis of the Democrats’ legislative proposal suggests the party would easily maintain its majorities in the Legislature under those plans, though they might not be guaranteed the three-fifths supermajorities they currently hold.
But it remained unclear Monday afternoon whether lawmakers would be able to find any agreement, or the session would blow up before the House could take action.
Lawmakers must pass redistricting plans by Sept. 27, under a deadline set by the state Supreme Court. If they fail, responsibility for drawing a new congressional map would go to a panel of five judges named by Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Martha Walters. Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, a Democrat, would get the task of drawing legislative maps.
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