The Iowa Legislature will convene next week to vote on a second set of redistricting maps.

The proposed maps were drawn by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency. The congressional maps would have one major change in the Raccoon Valley Radio-listening area. Greene County, which is currently in the Fourth Congressional District, would be in the Third Congressional District, along with Dallas and Guthrie counties, which are both currently in the Third District. The number of counties for the Fourth District would also decrease from 39 to 33 and the Third District would have 21 counties, including Polk County. 

The Iowa Senate and House districts would also undergo a shift in the Raccoon Valley Radio-listening area. Senate District 24 would include all of Greene, Guthrie and Boone counties, a small portion of western Story County and the northwest corner of Dallas County. House District 47 would include all of Greene and Guthrie counties, and the northwestern corner of Dallas County. 

State Senator Jesse Green and the other Republican Senators voted unanimously to reject the set proposed maps, saying their main concern was the compactness. He talks about how they will treat the second proposed maps.

“Go through the same process again. Come back home and see what the constituents think of the new maps and gather information. Once you vote down a set of maps, you cannot go back to it. But theoretically, we’ve never gone to a third map, but theoretically, you could go to the third map and be like, ‘You know what? Let’s just amend it to look like map #1 or map #2.’ And that would be the only possible way you could go back to a map like that.”

The congressional and legislative maps were based on the new U.S. Census data that is done every ten years. Click the link below to see the different versions of the maps.         

Iowa Legislature – Iowa Redistricting