Community Corner
Carnahan Dishes on State Congressional Redistricting Plan
The St. Louis congressman's meeting was tame compared to a 2009 meeting that ended in six arrests. He'd lose his district in the redistricting proposal before the governor now.
U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan expected the Republican-run Missouri Legislature to create bad redistricting maps, which he says it did.
The St. Louis Democrat expects Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon to veto the most recent map, which he hasn’t—yet. And the Rolla native expects to run for Congress again in 2013. He just didn’t say from what district, as the squabble over redrawing congressional boundaries unfolds.
Missouri loses a Congressional seat due to a lack of state population growth revealed by the 2010 census. The state will lose a seat in the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives, dropping from nine to eight congressional districts by 2013. Carnahan’s district, the third district, would disappear, swallowed up by the remaining districts, which would each grow by about 100,000 people.
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Carnahan's third district includes south St. Louis, south county, Jefferson County Webster Groves, Clayton, Richmond Heights, University City and Maplewood.
Carnahan spoke about redistricting and a new compromise plan to a crowd of approximately 130 people last night at a town hall meeting in the St. Louis Senior Center, 5602 Arsenal, St. Louis.
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The friendly audience was less interested in redistricting during the 90-minute meeting than topics ranging from Medicare, loans for gasoline price relief and a flat tax proposal.
It was in stark contrast to Carnahan's 2009 town hall meeting in South St. Louis County that erupted into confrontations and six arrests. More than a thousand Tea Party supporters were present then.
Carnahan covered topics from audience questions that were randomly pulled from a glass bowl.
Carnahan doesn’t like the redistricting plan just sent to the governor.
“Our Republican Legislature has laid out a plan to draw six Republican majority districts out of eight, and leave only two for Democrats,” Carnahan said.
“Missouri is famous for being a 50-50 state, split down the middle. So it’s not really a fair division to say that 75 percent of the people in your state live in a Republican district,” Carnahan said. “In order to draw a district like that, they had to draw some fantastic, crazy lines and they had to divide a lot of communities.”
He said there are better alternatives to splitting St. Charles County in half and Jefferson County into three districts.
"If you draw a ring around the greater St. Louis area, you’ll find you have exactly the population (necessary) for three whole seats,” Carnahan said.
And that’s what Carnahan wants: three Congressional districts to represent the St. Louis region.
Making reference to his father, the late Gov. Mel Carnahan, he said: “If you give people the facts, you’re going to get a good result.”