Monday Is the Last Chance for Voters to Suggest How Oregon Should Draw Congressional Districts

The result of one map would be to turn Oregon cobalt blue, while the other would render it kind of purple.

Houseboats along the Columbia River. (Henry Cromett)
By Aaron Mesh

Good fences make good neighbors—and new boundaries will determine legislative districts and how many of Oregon’s six congressional seats will belong to each party.

The state’s population increase over the past decade means Oregon gets a sixth seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. (Thanks, Californians!) State lawmakers now must draw the maps that determine where those congressional districts lie—an inherently partisan exercise, since the location of the districts determines how blue or red those districts are.

Surprise, surprise: Democrats released a proposed map that would distribute the liberal population of Portland across four of the six districts. (Their map resembles a pinwheel, with Portlanders fanning out into the countryside.) By contrast, Republicans propose to confine Portland’s progressives to a mere two districts, with the other four mostly unsullied by our cosmopolitan values.

As FiveThirtyEight does a nice job of displaying, the result of one map would be to turn Oregon cobalt blue, while the other would render it kind of purple.

Maybe you have a better plan. If so, better hurry up and finish it: The deadline to submit written testimony to the Legislature is 8:30 pm Monday, Sept. 13. Just email Oregon.Redistricting@Oregonlegislature.gov. (You can also sign up for a time slot to offer verbal testimony on Zoom during two virtual sessions tomorrow. Presumably, you can hold up maps to the Zoom camera.)

On Sept. 20, lawmakers from both parties will try to reach a compromise in a special redistricting session, focused both on congressional districts and state legislative districts. Here’s my 2 cents: The map where U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) has to campaign in Madras is incredibly funny, and therefore better than the other map.

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