Beebe Tweaks Senate Map

Late Tuesday, Gov. Mike Beebe’s office released an update to his State Senate map. There were no major changes, just some tweaking around some districts.  The main changes included:

• The proposed districts held by Republican Sen. Jonathan Dismang and Sen. Eddie Joe Williams swapped some of the area around the city  of Beebe, moving this into Dismang’s district and out of Williams’.  The changes smoothes out both districts, particularly Dismang’s.  In addition, before being elected to the Senate, Dismang represented the city of Beebe in the House, so it makes since he would remain with his base. "I am glad to have my hometown of Beebe back in my district," said Dismang. "I am also pleased that the two largest cities in White Couty (Beebe and Searcy) will be together."
• The second main change shifts additional minority precincts into the proposed east Arkansas district held by Democratic Sen. Jack Crumbly.  The original proposed district was a majority-minority district but just barely, drawing complaints from Crumbly.  The revision increases the minority make-up of the proposed district from 51% to 53% of the voting age population. Some observers have speculated that State Rep. Keith Ingram may challenge Crumbly in Democratic primary.
• The final change moves some of the precincts in the Arkadelphia area out of the proposed district held by Sen. Larry Teague and into the proposed district held by Sen. Percy Malone.  This proposed open district includes term-limited Rep. Bruce Maloch of Magnolia who said he plans to run for this seat.

One side note – a complaint from some insiders who are following the process is the inability of the Board of Apportionment to provide precinct level data for the proposed maps.  The number crunchers need this level of data to fully examine the make-up of the proposed districts.  This detail was included in the Congressional redistricting bill during the legislative session. Going through this was how I discovered an error in the bill in the city of Humphries leading to an amendment being offered to correct the oversight.  I inquired about obtaining this detail on Tuesday and was told that it would be a few more days before this was available.  With the final vote scheduled for Friday, I’m not sure how much time we will have to go through this before the vote.

Beebe’s revised Senate map can be found here.