Sidney School teacher Sam Shaw told the commission that his Richland County was unique enough in its Bakken oil economy and the challenges that come with it, that it deserved its own district, if that meant the population was 5% less than the perfect amount, so be it.
“I believe that Richland County should remain whole, as would be possible under a 5% standard, but not under a 1% standard,” Shaw said. “Richland County is unique, and we have unique interests, because we have a lot of oilfield activity and the impacts that entails, something that the counties around us simply do not have.”
Richland is a reliably Republican County, but the push for a deviation of 5% was counter to Republican messaging by Skees and others. Similar support for wide variation came from people in Ravalli County who didn’t want to be comingled with Missoula, fearing their local issues would be lost.
Other issues were specific to legislative districts. The commission opened with public discussion about prison gerrymandering, in which a prison’s population of inmates ineligible to vote is used to secure a legislative district for the prison’s host community.
There’s interest in this districting commission to include prisoners in the population count of their home towns, rather than their prison address. There was some debate about whether this could be done accurately to the home address level, or whether the count should wait another decade.
