Proposals would shift legislative districts, but critics say the details are missing
Sep. 17—A set of maps showing new proposed boundaries for Maine's 35 state Senate districts drew criticism Friday for lacking details needed to show voters how things would change in 2022 if either proposal gets approved by the Legislature.
Maine's Apportionment Commission will hold a public hearing on proposed U.S. Congress, state senate and county commissioner maps on Monday at 8:30 a.m.. The commission's deadline to submit proposed maps to the Legislature is Sept. 27.
Anna Kellar, executive director of the League of Women Voters, said Friday their organization was very disappointed the granular detail that would lead to informed comment was missing from the maps made available on the commission's website.
"Voters in municipalities that are proposed to be split such as Portland and Scarborough are unable to determine which district they are proposed to be in," said Kellar in a prepared statement. "We urge the Commission to immediately release shapefiles of proposed districts to meet its constitutional mandate to allow full public review of plans prior to submission. Maine taxpayers are funding the Commission's work, and are entitled to a full review of the maps it has created."
Emery Younger, a member of the commission staff, said later Friday people could request any of the map files the commission has in hand by emailing the commission at .
The public is also being encouraged to offer written comment via the same email address.
The state Legislature's special Apportionment Commission released the maps as proposed by its Republican and Democratic members late Thursday afternoon intending them to be used for public comment at Monday's hearing. But beyond big shifts, where entire cities are being moved from one district to another, the maps do not show what legislative district they will be in come 2022.
Among the communities facing changes because of the new population counts are Portland and its neighbors. The parties' proposals for changing state Senate district boundaries would carve up the city of Portland in different ways.
Under the Democratic proposals, Portland would share one senator with the neighboring cities of South Portland and Westbrook and another with Chebeague Island, Cumberland, Falmouth, Long Island, Yarmouth and North Yarmouth, while a third district would be entirely within the city.
Under the Republican plan, Portland would have one Senate district entirely within city limits while a second would include parts of Portland along with Falmouth and Long Island. The city has two Senate districts now, with Senate District 27 entirely within the city, and Senate District 28 including part of Portland and part of Westbrook.
The commission is operating under a constrained timeline for redrawing the districts, which is required under the state and U.S. Constitution every 10 years based on changes in population. A pandemic-induced delay in the release of federal Census data has put the commission on tight timeline to complete its work.
In July the state's Supreme Judicial Court issued a ruling giving the commission 45 days to finish its work after it had received the new population data from the federal government. It needs to produce a recommendation for the Legislature to vote on by Sept. 27 to meet that deadline but those proposals also need to be vetted during a public hearing allowing voters as well as state and local election officials to weigh in on the proposed changes.
Under state law and previous court rulings state Senate districts need to have a near equal numbers of people in them but may deviate by five percent in order to limit splitting cities, towns and counties between multiple districts.
The commission is made up of seven Republicans and seven Democrats and is chaired by former Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Donald Alexander. It's task is usually completed over a six-month period but because of the Census data delay it has had only six weeks to negotiate the new district boundaries.
The release of competing maps Thursday is likely a starting point for ongoing negotiations. Any final plan would need a two-thirds vote of the Maine Legislature to go into effect. If the Legislature is unable to reach that threshold the new district boundaries will be determined by the state's Supreme Judicial Court.
The commission is also redrawing the lines for county commission districts in all 16 of Maine's counties.
Of the last two redistricting efforts in Maine one, in 2011 was settled by the Legislature and the other, in 2001, was settled by the high court. The new districts will first come into play during a statewide primary election in June of 2022.
