Spin Control: Along with redistricting, how about renumbering?

Special commissions are tasked across the state with the unique task of drawing new boundaries for congressional, legislative, county, and parish wards.

While they are debating where one lawmaker or member of the Congressional area should stop and someone else’s should start, there is one relatively simple task they could do that would make life easier for voters everywhere.

Along with remapping, consider “renumbering”.

Washington’s legislative and congressional district numbering system makes no sense, and has been for over half a century.

For example, Spokane County and much of east Washington are all or part of the 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 9th Legislative Divisions.

So where are the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 8th? You might ask.

The first is in Snohomish County, the second in Pierce and Thurston Counties, and the fifth in King County. The 8th is on the western edge of the 9th, although it is quite a long way from the 7th.

At the beginning of statehood, the numbering of the legislative districts followed a pattern starting with 1. The counties north of Spokane County were the 2nd district, Spokane County housed the 3rd through 7th districts, Whitman County had the 8th and 9th districts , the 10th comprised the southeastern counties before the numbers migrated west along the southern borders of the state and then north up the Olympic Peninsula, then up the east side of Puget Sound.

Some shrank and others expanded due to population growth, but they pretty much stayed in place. In 1931, the state began adding legislative districts to the Puget Sound’s fastest growing areas, but most were at least pretty close to the other peaks, leaving the single digits and teenagers on the East Side. However, in 1957 they had to give up a newly created 49th district in Vancouver.

This general consistency of numbers ended in 1965 when the 1st District was redistributed from Okanogan County to King County and Okanogan was merged with Counties Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille in the 2nd District. The 2nd district was moved to Pierce County in 1972 and the 7th, which included the West Plains and other rural parts of northern Spokane County, was expanded to hold much of the previously merged 2nd district. The 5th District, which was Spokane’s true swing district in the middle of the last century, encompassing parts of the northwestern city of Spokane and the surrounding suburbs, was relocated in 1991 and the lines of Spokane County’s Legislative District were redrawn – some said they were “gerrymandered” to contain or be part of one strongly democratic and four strongly republican districts.

This story explains why there is nothing magical about numbers. For some voters who live near a border, their legislature number changes with the new election, even if their address remains the same and no one complains. Many other voters have only a vague idea of ​​their district’s number and may not realize it until they see the campaign signs every two years or notice them on the primary ballot that comes in the mail.

The people most associated with the district numbers are likely the legislators themselves. They are inclined to say that they represent the good people of the (please enter the ordinal number) and for (please enter the cardinal number) years old are.

Districts sometimes adopt nicknames. When the 6th Ward was a safe Republican Ward on Spokane’s South Hill, it was sometimes referred to as the “Silk Stocking 6.” designated.

Several of the current redistribution proposals would wipe out any trace of it. Some want much of South Hill in the Democratic 3rd Ward, which could result in former 6th Ward MPs like Sam Guess and Dick Bond spinning in their graves. One proposal took it entirely out of the city of Spokane and extends into Lincoln County, where voters are not tied to that number.

Congressional districts are also numbered using a system that defies logic and is due to the slow expansion of the number of members the state sends to the US House of Representatives. The 1st and 2nd are in the northwest corner of the state, but the 8th, 9th and 10th are between them and the 3rd, while the 6th is in the west. The 4th and 5th are on the other side of the cascades.

So 2021 would be a good time to logically renumber the legislative and congressional districts. The commission could start on one corner of the state, say the northeast corner, for the 1st Legislative District and work clockwise around the state until it reaches 49. She could then select the opposite corner of the state for the 1st Congressional District and work counterclockwise around the state until it reaches 10.

A few people might be confused about an election, but after that everyone would probably get used to it and by 2031, the time of the next new election, everyone would be used to it.