Montana’s Redistricting Commission is almost finished drawing legislative districts that will determine the make-up of Montana’s 2024 Legislature and future legislatures through 2032.  The Commission is taking public comment on their proposed “Tentative Map CP-1 (HDP-8)”

Niow is the time to provide public comment.

 You can provide public comment in one or both of two ways:

1. Write to the Commission no later than 5:00 pm Thursday, Dec. 8, using the link below:

https://mtredistricting.gov/contact/

2. Provide oral testimony at the public hearing at 9:00 am Saturday, December 10, by signing up no later than Friday December 9 by 5:00 pm using the link below.  Note:  Oral testimony is limited to 3 minutes per speaker.

 https://mtredistricting.gov/remote-participation-request/             

The League encourages people to support Tentative Map CP-1 and encourage fair Senate districts, speaking for yourself as a member of the public.  

BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND TALKING POINTS:

Background:  Montana’s redistricting Commission has five members, two each from the Republican and Democrat parties, and the non-partisan Chair.  The Commission met last week to consider all of the public comment from the statewide hearings held in August and September.  During the work session, each party introduced one new map, HDP-7 and HDP-8.  The Commission Chair worked with Commissioners one-on-one to get some compromises worked out.  In the end, the Commission Chair cast the deciding vote to put forth “Tentative Map CP-1 (HDP -8)”  which is now open for public comment.  The Map can be found here:

https://mtredistricting.gov/state-legislative-maps-proposed-by-the-commission/

Neither Map  HDP-7 nor Map CP-1 achieves a projected partisan balance that equals the 57% Republican/43% Democrat distribution of voters in recent elections.   The geographic distribution of partisan voters in Montana is problematic, i.e.,  voters who vote Republicans are more concentrated in rural areas, and those who vote Democrat are more concentrated in urban areas.  This geographic imbalance makes it very hard to create partisan proportionality without creating other negative impacts.  Map CP-1 is probably the best that can be done given the mandatory criteria that require districts to be contiguous and compact. 

Comparison of Maps:

1. Map  CP-1 is more compact, intersects less county and city boundaries, has more competitive districts (10) which are evenly divided with five favoring each major party.  Map CP-1  would likely result in 60 Republican legislators in the Montana House, or 3 more than is proportional to their 57% vote share.   Map CP-1 has 6 minority majority districts.  
   
   
2. Map HDP-7 is less compact, intersects more county and city boundaries, has less competitive districts (7) of which all slightly favor Republicans.  Map HDP-7 would likely result in 66 Republican legislators in the Montana House, or 9 more than is proportional to their 57% share of voters.  Map HDP-7 has 6 minority majority districts.

To see a chart comparing  maps CP-1 with HDP-7, click on this link: map_cp-1_chart.pdf

Talking Points:

1. Map CP-1 does the better job of meeting mandatory criteria:  the districts are contiguous, more compact and meet the Voting Rights Act by including 6 minority majority districts to allow Native Americans to elect candidates of their choice. 
   
   
2. Map CP-1 goes beyond the minimum of meeting the mandatory requirements to also better address the goals the Commission adopted.  The goals received unanimous support from all four partisan Commissioners when they were adopted.  Map CP-1 comes closer to meeting these three goals: 

a. not giving undue advantage to one political party;

b. dividing fewer city, county and reservation boundaries;

c. creating more districts that are politically competitive. 

Encourage the  Commission to create fair Senate Districts.  Senate districts consist of two House districts and will be designated in the next round of mapping.

1. Pair neighboring minority-majority House districts with each other to allow for Native Americans to elect the candidates of their choice to the Montana Senate.  Native Americans constitute 7.8% of the state’s population per the 2020 census.  For proportional representation, this would mean 4 Senators.  Pairing neighboring minority House to form Senate districts would offer the potential for 3 candidates of choice for Native Americans.

1. Minimize undue advantage to one political party by pairing remaining districts to allow the Senate to reflect partisan voting shares.  Proportional Senate would have approximately 29 Senate districts likely to go Republican and 21 Senate districts likely to go Democrat.  Create as many competitive Senate districts as possible using the Commission’s adopted definition of competitiveness.