The Apportionment Board approved recommendations for altered House and Senate voting districts on Thursday.
The House proposal doubles the number of single-member districts. The Senate map largely follows county lines with a few exceptions, and it reconfigures the unwieldy, six-member Chittenden County Senate district into four new two-member voting districts.
The board, which includes appointees from the three major parties, Progressives, Republicans and Democrats, is charged with modifying districts every 10 years in response to demographic shifts tracked by the U.S. Census. Each member of the House is supposed to represent approximately 4,172 Vermonters; each senator is supposed to represent about 20,858 people.
The first part of the process, pending any unforeseen errors, has been completed, well before the July 1 deadline. The House proposal now goes to the boards of civil authority in towns around the state for recommendations. It will eventually be subject to legislative approval. The Senate plan will be sent directly to the Legislature.
The latest changes to the House plan
After months back and forth about how the House districts should be carved up, the plan originally supported by Republicans and Progressives on June 13 was given formal approval on Thursday with a few tweaks.
Members of the Apportionment Board have said they would not consider the impact changes could have on incumbents. The plan that the Progressives and Republicans approved would more than double the number of single-member seats in the House and pit a number of Democratic incumbents against one other. Though Democrats are in the majority in the General Assembly, they have equal representation with the minority parties on the Apportionment Board.
House Speaker Shap Smith, whose own town would be divided in half under the proposal, has said he would reject a plan that isn’t aligned with existing districts.
“I guess the question is whether you want to spend time engaging in an exercise that’s going to thud in the Legislature or do something that’s going to work,” Smith said in an interview earlier this month.
Progressive board member Steve Hingtgen proposed two modifications to the House map. The first change merges Buels Gore with the town of Huntington. Hingtgen said the two communities are connected, and Buels Gore already votes with Huntington.
The second modification he proposed changes the district configurations for six Central Vermont towns. Hingtgen said he wanted to eliminate the need to split East Montpelier, and he proposed to combine East Montpelier and Middlesex in one district and Elmore-Worcester-Woodbury-Calais into another.
Both proposals were approved.
The seven-member board, which had planned during previous meetings to use Thursday to vote to finalize the plans, was short a member. Neale Lunderville, a Republican appointee on the board and an executive with Green Mountain Power, was not present at the final meeting because of his company’s public bid on Central Vermont Public Service in Rutland the same day. Because Lunderville was not able to vote via telephone conference call, his absence created the potential for a three-three split vote and a political predicament for the board.
The single-member district plan for the House was passed on a 4-to-2 vote.
The two Democrats on the board, Gerry Gossens and Frank Cioffi, voted against the House plan. Progressive members Steve Hingtgen and Meg Brook, along with Republican member Robert Roper voted for it. The fourth vote came from Chairman Tom Little. Little, a former Republican House representative, had previously voted against single-member districts but cast his vote for the plan Thursday in order to avoid a split and ultimate failure of the plan. Lunderville, a strong advocate of single-member districts, would have voted for the map anyway, Little said.
“In light of these circumstances and without changing what I’ve said previously about my views about the single-member districts, I think it is the will of the board to vote,” Little said.
The redistricted house map will be sent to the boards of civil authority on July 1, allowing a period for towns to comment on the proposal. The board will receive recommendations from towns throughout the month of July. The board will have one last chance to make final changes before it is sent to the General Assembly in January.
Senate map alters Orange, Windsor and Chittenden districts
The board spent weeks finalizing the House plans and left little time to discuss Senate changes with the same level of consideration.
Lunderville’s proposed single-seat Senate district map was rejected. Another plan, which would have held fast to the Senate district lines, was also voted down.
Eventually, the board came to consensus around a plan that is not much different from the existing district lines. Cioffi was the only dissenter in the group; he said he thought the alterations were unnecessary.
“I didn’t think it was needed to make any changes,” Cioffi said. “I thought the districts were OK and the deviation was OK.”
The new senate plan, as it will be presented to the General Assembly, includes the following changes:
Chittenden County is divided into four, 2-member districts:
Burlington;
Colchester, Milton, Winooski, South Hero, Grand Isle, North Hero, Isle Lamont and Alburgh;
Williston, Essex, Jericho, Underhill, Westford and St. George;
South Burlington, Shelburne, Charlotte, Hinesburg, Huntington, Buel’s Gore, Richmond and Bolton.
The Windsor Senate district would include Granville and Hancock; the town of Orange would be part of the Orange Senate district.
The deviation between population figures and existing Senate districts was 20.89, according to the 2010 census data. With these alterations, the deviation would be lowered to 14.48, a quarter of a percent less than the 2002 plan.
The Senate plan does not follow the same process. Though the Senate map must be approved by July 1 just like the House plan, it is not sent to the boards of civil authority for public comment. The plan that was approved on Thursday will go directly to the Senate for consideration in the next legislative session.
New maps are not yet available.
