Fort Smith chamber board endorses 3rd District stay
by March 18, 2011 4:24 pm 69 views
The board of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce on Thursday (Mar. 17) approved a resolution asking the Arkansas General Assembly to keep Fort Smith and Sebastian County in the 3rd Congressional District.
Congressional redistricting, a task driven every 10 years by a new U.S. Census, has proven somewhat contentious because of the population growth of the 3rd Congressional District.
The Census data showed substantial population losses in 36 of the state’s 75 counties. Thirty-four of those 36 counties experiencing population losses are in the First and Fourth Congressional districts.
Ideal Congressional District sizes would entail 731,557 residents in each of the four districts. Arkansas’ 1st and 4th Districts need to gain about 50,000 and 75,000 citizens respectively. The 2nd District needs to lose about 15,000, and the 3rd Congressional District must jettison around 110,000 residents.
The redistricting work will be done through the State Agencies Committee of the Arkansas House and Senate.
The city of Fort Smith moved quickly to send a resolution to the Arkansas Legislature requesting to remain in the 3rd Congressional District.
However, the Fort Smith chamber board moved a little slower, with an initial review of whether the county and city may be better served to land in the 4th District. There was some thinking that moving to the 4th District would somehow better position Fort Smith to be the center of a possible fifth Congressional District formed after the 2020 Census.
That thinking did not prevail.
Language in the chamber’s resolution noted that “the City of Fort Smith and Sebastian County have significantly more geographic, cultural, political and social connections with Northwest Arkansas and the other counties of the Third Congressional District than it does with areas of the Fourth Congressional District.”
Speaking Friday (Mar. 18) at the open house of his Fort Smith office, U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers, said he has “worked hard behind the scenes” to ensure Sebastian County remains in the 3rd District. He said too many “great things are beginning to happen” between the Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas metro areas for them to now be divided by redistricting.
“Only with a fight will this happen,” Womack said of Sebastian County moving to the 4th District.