The South Dakota Legislature opened its special session on redistricting Monday, but 10 hours of wrangling left the super-majority Republicans divided.
The House and Senate each passed their own map and defeated the one from the other chamber, each accusing the other of gerrymandering.
The House voted 48-20 for the “Grouse 2.0” plan which generally leaves legislative district lines where they are with no incumbents changing districts.
The Senate, by a 20-15 margin, backed the “Blackbird 2.0.” map making significant changes in some areas to reflect population changes shown by last year’s Census.
A 6-member conference committee was appointed to try to work out a compromise.
Speaker Gosch, Majority Leader Kent Peterson, and Democrat Ryan Cwach are representing the House with Republicans Mary Duvall and Casey Crabtree and Democrat Red Dawn Foster of Pine Ridge the members from the Senate.
If the Legislature is unable to agree on a map that’s also acceptable to Gov Kristi Noem by December 1st, the South Dakota Supreme Court will draw the new legislative map.