Impasse On Redistricting Committee Means Competing Maps To Go To Special Session

     The Nebraska Legislature’s Redistricting Committee has hit an impasse in drafting the state’s new political boundaries and will present two sets of legislative and congressional maps to next week’s special session on redistricting.

    The biggest dispute is over what to do with Douglas County, the major Democratic stronghold in Nebraska, with a leading Republican and a leading Democrat releasing competing maps.  

        Republican Senator Louann Linehan would split Douglas County – keeping the southern half in the 2nd District but adding all of Republican-friendly Sarpy and Saunders Counties to it while north Douglas would go into the heavily Republican 1st District.

      Democratic Senator Justin Wayne’s map keeps all of Douglas County in the 2nd District and moves Sarpy County’s Democrat-friendly Bellevue are back into the 2nd District, where it was before the last redistricting a decade ago. 

     Republicans hold a majority on the Redistricting Committee and in the Legislature, but the margin in the Legislature isn’t enough to overcome a filibuster by the Democrats.