This map shows the current legislative districts for Boyle, Garrard, Mercer, Lincoln and Casey counties. The Kentucky secretary of state was ordered Tuesday not to implement newly redrawn legislative districts because a judge found that they don't meet constitutional muster. (Graphic by Ben Kleppinger/bkleppinger@amnews.com / February 8, 2012) |
FRANKFORT — The Kentucky secretary of state was ordered Tuesday not to implement newly redrawn legislative districts because a judge found that they don’t meet constitutional muster.
Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd filed the order Tuesday afternoon in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Kentucky’s new districts.
“The current districts are out of balance and must be redrawn to comply with the ‘one person, one vote’ mandate of federal and state law,” Shepherd wrote in a 16-page order.
Shepherd’s ruling was “very exciting” for Rep. Kim King of Harrodsburg, one of the Republican plaintiffs who challenged the redistricting plan in court. King was moved from the 55th District — where she won her first term last year — to the 54th District, where she would have had to challenge incumbent Mike Harmon in the May primary.
“We feel like we have the facts on our side,” King said this morning in a telephone interview from Frankfort. “I’m cautiously optimistic right now, but we’ve only won one battle. The war’s not over yet.”
Shepherd’s ruling restores district boundaries that had been in place throughout the last decade, and extends the deadline to Friday for legislative candidates to file to run in this year’s elections. The ruling means some candidates may have to withdraw in the newly redrawn districts and file for election in the old districts.
Meanwhile, attorneys were considering a quick appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
“I favor an appeal,” House Speaker Greg Stumbo said. “It’s obviously an issue that needs to be addressed by the Supreme Court.”
Redistricting has mired the legislature’s session, leaving major issues in the lurch. With legislative redistricting in the courts, lawmakers have been unable to agree on new lines around the state’s six congressional districts.
Stumbo said he expects congressional redistricting may also move into the court system, because the populations within the state’s six districts grew far out of balance over the past decade.
“The federal rules are so strict on ‘one man, one vote’ that it wouldn’t surprise me if there were to some challenge,” Stumbo said.
Stumbo had worked with the state’s congressional delegation on a proposed map, but Senate Republicans didn’t accept the plan. The congressional filing deadline passed on Tuesday afternoon, leaving congressional candidates to run in districts that have been in place for the past decade.
For more than a month, Kentucky lawmakers have focused almost entirely on the contentious debate over redrawing legislative and congressional district boundaries.
House Republicans were unhappy with the outcome of the legislative redistricting battle and filed a lawsuit in January challenging the constitutionality of newly drawn boundaries, claiming they favor Democrats. A Senate Democrat displaced in the redistricting process joined the lawsuit, which contends that the new legislative districts could have been better balanced by population and that they could have been drawn in a way would have required fewer splits in counties and precincts.
In the ruling, Shepherd said he saw no need for the Republican-dominated Senate to move the district of Democratic Sen. Kathy Stein of Lexington into northeastern Kentucky in a way that prevented her from seeking re-election in Lexington this year. He said the action “is neither ‘an absolute necessity’ nor ‘unavoidable.’”
“It appears to be an arbitrary decision without a rational basis,” Shepherd wrote.
Shepherd had issued a temporary restraining order last week that pushed the legislative filing deadline from Jan. 31 to the close of business on Tuesday. In the latest ruling, the judge granted a temporary injunction requested by House Republicans and Stein to stop the secretary of state from planning elections around the new legislative districts.
Redistricting occurs every 10 years to account for population changes reported in the U.S. Census. The latest count found that the state’s overall population grew from 4 million to 4.3 million from 2000 to 2010, forcing new legislative and congressional district boundaries to be drawn. At each level of government — state House, Senate and Congress — the districts must be of nearly equal size.
The new legislative districts produced some oddly shaped boundaries. The 89th House District stretches from the Tennessee border in McCreary County, zigzags narrowly through Laurel County, then encompasses all of Jackson County for a geographic setup that one lawmaker said would require an airplane for travel. One Senate district stretches from Barbourville to Morehead.
Kentucky is one of at least 25 states with pending court cases involving redistricting. A similar Kentucky lawsuit filed after the 1990 census established some of the case law that House Republicans reference in their challenge.
Advocate-Messenger reporter Todd Kleffman contributed to this story.
