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There's a big political decision coming in the Legislature next year.
When state senators craft new congressional districts in response to 2010 census figures, they'll draw the boundaries of a competitive and marginal Omaha district that could be swung toward either party.
Senators often trumpet the non-partisan nature of the Nebraska Legislature, but that characteristic swiftly disappears when the time comes to redraw the lines of congressional districts.
Case in point: When an independent legislative panel once suggested that the most efficient way to accomplish congressional redistricting would be to move Madison County from the 1st District to the 3rd District, Republican leaders descended on the Legislature.
Madison County and Nofolk, solidly conservative and Republican, stayed in the 1st District, where they continue to provide some counterweight to Democratic voters in Lincoln.
Western and central Nebraska's bright red 3rd District needed no additional Republican votes, senators were reminded.
The focus next year will be on metropolitan Omaha's 2nd District, composed of Douglas County and portions of Sarpy County, including Bellevue, Papillion and LaVista.
It's a battleground district, which Republican Rep. Lee Terry won in 2008 with a little less than 52 percent of the vote. It's the only Nebraska district that has elected a Democrat in the last 46 years.
Terry and Democratic challenger Tom White are locked in a competitive struggle this year.
When it comes time next year to redraft the district's boundaries, Republicans will hold the levers of power.
State senators may be elected on a non-partisan ballot, but a majority of them are Republicans and many were elected with GOP support.
Barring an upset victory by Democratic challenger Mike Meister, Republican Gov. Dave Heineman will be sitting in the governor's office and quietly making his wishes known.
With all of that as background, let's talk to University of Nebraska-Lincoln political scientist Mike Wagner about a study he recently co-authored on the need to pay attention to "communities of interest" in drawing congressional lines.
What he and the University of Mississippi's Jonathan Winburn found was that moving a small portion of a county into a congressional district tends to effectively disenfranchise its residents.
"They are much less likely to know who their representative is," Wagner says, and they tend to receive far less in federal grant dollars as measured per capita.
In effect, their congressman or woman is less accountable to them.
All of that is accented even further when those constituents live outside the district's media market.
"Sometimes, you can't avoid splitting a county," Wagner says, "but it would be much better to try to split a county in half than do it on a 90-10 or 80-20 basis."
Achieving population equality among the districts, thus adhering to the principle of "one man, one vote," may be desirable, Wagner says, but not at the expense of breaking up natural communities of interest.
The 2nd District redistricting decision next year could be a great laboratory experiment.
Included in the mix is Omaha and its diverse African American community in north Omaha and increasingly Hispanic community in south Omaha; suburban Sarpy County communities; and a military community in and near Offutt Air Force Base, which is located near Bellevue, but closely tied to Omaha's corporate community.
Republican and Democratic leaders already are crunching numbers and mulling options.
"There are a lot of variables in determining who gets protected," Wagner says.
A non-partisan commission would "do a more equitable job" than a legislature, he says.
"The mapmakers would be more concerned with fairness," Wagner says, "and produce the least partisan outcome."
Now, he says, incumbent members of the House virtually "get to pick who they represent" because of partisan redistricting based on incumbent protection.
"We need to hold lawmakers' feet to the fire next year," Wagner says, "and ask for explanations about their redistricting decisions.
"It's politics, and it's going to seem like a dirty process.
"But it's important for folks to recognize that partisan politics is not a pristine business."
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