Thanks to new census data and a recent amendment to the New Hampshire Constitution, voting districts are being redrawn all over New Hampshire. Keene, in particular, will experience major changes.
But, with only eight months left until state candidates begin filing to run for office, many details are still undecided.
In the last election, Keene residents voted for 7 state representatives, all running at large (that is, they represent the entire city). The new Constitutional amendment, passed in 2006, requires that, if a town or city ward has enough people to support its own state representative, it must have its own state representative. All 5 wards in Keene qualify. Thus, there will be at least 5 state representatives in Keene representing individual wards.
By itself, this will bring major changes. While Democrats routinely dominate state politics in Keene as a whole, there are a few individual wards where Republicans could present serious challenges. It also means that libertarian political influence will depend in large part on the geographical dispersion of libertarians. Do a whole lot of libertarians live in ward 3? Then there’s a decent chance of getting a libertarian candidate elected there.
There are still enough people in Keene to deserve two more representatives, though. Each of the five wards has more people than it needs for its one representative. The law requires that New Hampshire residents have roughly equal voting influence. Somehow the math has to work out, with Keene wards being compensated for their over-large populations.
The Keene city council passed a resolution declaring to state legislators that it wants that compensation in the form of two state representatives, representing Keene at large. What will actually happen is anyone’s guess.
Tuesday night, the House Special Committee on Redistricting held a meeting at the Keene Public Library, intending to gather input from Cheshire County residents. It was clear that many attendees wanted to get news from the committee instead, but there was little news to go around.
Representative Steve Vaillancourt, a libertarian Republican from Manchester, provided most of the news. He has been putting together hypothetical districts for other counties, but Cheshire County? He doesn’t have a hypothetical district map, because he simply can’t find a way to draw the lines that meets all legal requirements.
Many attendees voiced concerns about keeping “communities of interest” in the same district, so that representatives can more easily represent their constituents, but it seems doubtful that these attendees will end up happy, given the legal constraints. (In particular, Rindge representative Susan Emerson, known for her disagreements with Republican leadership, was very upset with how she expects her district to change, and suggested she was being unfairly targeted for her views.)
Regarding Keene’s two extra representatives, the option of sharing them with Roxbury (immediately to the east of Keene) was brought up as an alternative to the Keene city council’s plan. The option met with a lukewarm reception.
Apparently, the fate of Keene’s unallocated representatives will remain a mystery. For now.
(For more information on official redistricting procedures and legal constraints, see the website of the House Special Committee on Redistricting.)
