Thursday, September 9, 2021

Lincoln Journal-Star (9/8/21) on GOP Plans to Break-Up Omaha-Based CD-2 (NEBRASKA)

The Lincoln Journal-Star reports on some of the early maneuvering in the Nebraska legislature that may convert the 2nd district (little blue area to the left) from its current competitive status to safely Republican (h/t Political Wire). The other two districts would remain securely in the GOP's hands.

The current 2nd district is based in Douglas County (which contains the state's largest city, Omaha) and Sarpy County to the south. Republican Don Bacon has held this seat since the 2016 election, but has never exceeded 51% of the vote in his three general elections. The 2nd was represented by Democrat Brad Ashford for one term (2014-2016).

As readers of this blog would probably already know, what gives Nebraska's (and Maine's) U.S. House districts added importance is the practice in these two states of dividing up presidential electoral votes (EV's) based on Congressional districts. Nebraska's five EV's are allocated as follows: two to the presidential candidate who wins the overall popular vote in the state and one each to the winner within each U.S. House district.

In the 2020 presidential contest, it looked for a time after Election Night that the winner might be decided by a small number of electoral votes, so Joe Biden's win in the 2nd district (depicted in the adjoining diagram) looked like it could be a "Big [Effin'] Deal," to use one of Biden's signature phrases. (Biden ended up winning the EV count 306-232, so the one vote from Nebraska's CD-2 was not that important in the end.) Potentially, though, the configuration of Nebraska's districts could reverberate heavily in a presidential context.

Regarding the specifics of one redistricting plan in the Nebraska legislature: 

Under the redistricting plan authored by Republicans who serve in the nonpartisan Legislature, a portion of Douglas County would be moved into the [1st] congressional district represented by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Lincoln. 

Meanwhile, heavily Republican Saunders County, whose county seat is Wahoo, would be moved into the 2nd District. 

Although, as noted above, Nebraska officially has a non-partisan legislature, members' party affiliations seem widely known. Also, the legislature is unicameral, with legislators in the single chamber known as "senators." 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Redistricting Now Complete in All States (NATIONAL)

  With New Hampshire finally determining how to draw the lines between its two congressional districts, all states have now completed redis...