BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Supreme Court has rejected challenges to the state’s new legislative district map.
The court released a unanimous opinion Thursday, rejecting petitions that argued the map released by Idaho’s bipartisan redistricting commission violated the Idaho Constitution.
Legal challengers argued the commission violated the Idaho Constitution and state law by dividing too many counties — eight — and “communities of interest,” such as tribal reservations. The lawsuits presented a challenge to the commission’s discretion in splitting counties and communities.
The justices backed the commission’s discretion in this case. And they disavowed a previous court’s ruling, which struck down a 2011 legislative map because it had split more counties than another proposed map.
Thursday’s ruling said the previous court’s interpretation failed to consider language in the Idaho Constitution that says a county can be divided if the commission “reasonably determined” it should be divided to comply with the equal protection clause. The clause in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — better known as the “one person, one vote” provision — states that legislative districts must be about equal in population to ensure the weight of a person’s vote isn’t based on geography.
“We hold that petitioners have failed to meet their burden of showing that the commission unreasonably determined that eight county splits were necessary to afford Idaho’s citizens equal protection of the law,” Justice John R. Stegner wrote in the opinion, with other justices concurring.
The bipartisan Idaho Commission for Reapportionment is tasked every 10 years with redrawing voting districts, the boundaries for state House and Senate offices, based on the most recent census.
The lawsuits sought to remand the map back to the redistricting commission, which would’ve been required to elect new members and select new boundaries. After surviving the legal challenge, the commission’s preferred map will established districts for the May primary election.
