Tagged: redistricting

Wyoming's attorney general wants a district judge in Cheyenne to dismiss a lawsuit fighting the state's redistricting plan.

Greg Phillips filed the state's response last week, arguing the proper procedures weren't followed to qualify the seven plaintiffs to be eligible for a class-action suit.

The residents sued earlier this month in Laramie County District Court to try to overturn the Legislature's recently adopted redistricting work. They argue the plan doesn't adequately represent some of the state's more sparsely populated counties.

A group of citizens has filed a lawsuit
challenging Wyoming's newly adopted legislative redistricting plan.
     The lawsuit charges that state lawmakers bent over backward to
make sure incumbent state senators didn't have to run against each
other and accuses the plan of failing to give less-populous
counties fair representation.
     The lawsuit filed Thursday in Laramie County District Court
seeks to block Gov. Matt Mead and the other four statewide elected
officials from implementing the redistricting plan.

The State Senate has given initial approval to a bill that redraws legislative districts.  The House of Representatives added an amendment to the redistricting measure that protected the seat of Senator Curt Meier.  This fall a joint committee told Meier his Senate seat would be combined with one in Laramie County and he’d have to run against Senator Wayne Johnson in order to keep his seat. 

The Chairman of a Committee redrawing state legislative districts admits he is not pleased with a House Amendment that preserved the seat of a State Senator from Goshen and Platte Counties.  Senate Corporations and Political Subdivisions Chairman Cale Case says he may try and remove that amendment. "That long strip that goes up along the Nebraska border and captures the prison and puts it down with a district in Cheyenne -- we are legitimately open to a little criticism on that and I will probably try and remove that in the Senate," Case said. That amendment keeps Senator Curt Meier from ge

The Wyoming House of Representatives gave final approval to a new legislative redistricting plan Friday.  It makes subtle changes across the state,and House members voted to accept a plan that also keeps Senators Curt Meier and Wayne Johnson from being combined into one Senate seat. 

Representative Pete Illoway oversaw the House effort and he admits he has mixed emotions about what they did to preserve the Senate seats.

A House Committee has approved a new plan for Wyoming’s new legislative districts, which would restore Senator Curt Meier’s seat.  Previously the committee told Meier that despite having two years left on his term, he would have to give up his seat and be moved into a district with Senator Wayne Johnson who lives in Laramie County.  But Meier offered an amendment that was adopted by the committee incorporating the non-voting prison population in Torrington to grab the necessary population.    Casper Representative Tim Stubson noted that it not only preserved a Senate seat, it achieved other

A panel of Wyoming lawmakers has endorsed a statewide plan for redrawing legislative districts that would leave one eastern Wyoming state senator out of a job.

The Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee unanimously approved a redistricting plan Thursday in Cheyenne. The redistricting is in response to population changes reflected in the latest census.

Lawmakers have approved plans to redraw Wyoming's legislative districts, allocating more lawmakers to central and western areas of the state that have gained population while drawing them away from some other places.

The plan approved by the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee on Tuesday would extend one state Senate district from Cheyenne north into the southern Goshen County community of LaGrange, home of Republican Sen. Curt Meier.

Meier says he plans to oppose that change when the committee meets in Cheyenne in January.