LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky Democrats’ legal challenge to Republican-drawn House and U.S. Congressional District faced opposition for the first time at a hearing in Franklin Circuit Court on Thursday, with state attorneys arguing their effort was too little, too late.
Attorneys for the Democrats said the new House map splits counties too many times, and the House and U.S. Congressional District maps are examples of “extreme partisan gerrymandering” that violate certain portions of the Kentucky Constitution.
Representing the state, Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office argued that the maps passed last month are now law and the motion should be dismissed. Changing or rewriting the maps that easily passed both chambers, they argued, would cause “chaos.”
Secretary of State Michael Adams, the state’s chief elections official, shared that sentiment. He said that all county clerks in the state have already drawn ballot positions and started to prep for the primary under the new maps.
Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate appeared to share some concern about the confusion that might ensue if the map were changed when he heard motion by the plaintiffs to temporarily block the new maps.
The suit, Graham v. Adams, asks the court to order that a new map be drawn or use maps enacted in 2013 for elections this year.
The new maps are pernicious, attorney Michael Abate said. On behalf of the Kentucky Democratic Party and Frankfort residents including Rep. Derrick Graham, he argued that they are Republicans’ way of going “for the kill” to eradicate Democratic opposition outside of Louisville and Lexington’s city limits.
“They’re using their power over redistricting to try to eliminate the political opposition. If you don’t have a chance to win a race outside of those two, maybe three, cities, you can’t recruit candidates, you can’t raise money, you don’t have a party infrastructure and you don’t have people to knock on the doors with a statewide race,” Abate said. “That’s the whole point of this.”
The lawsuit highlights analysis that says only 17 Kentucky House Districts out of 100 in the new map were either solidly Democratic or leaned that way; Democrats now have 24 members in that chamber. The Republican dominance under the new maps would far outpace their narrower, but still strong, edge in statewide elections, according to the Campaign Legal Center.
Counsel for Cameron’s office called the maps fair.
“The legislature decided that they were fair and enacted them based on all the criteria,” Associate Attorney General Victor Maddox said. “The plaintiffs in this case don’t think they’re fair, but that’s why we have courthouses.”
Though most in the courtroom, including Wingate, appeared to agree that the challenge would end up in the Kentucky Supreme Court, the hearing offered a glimpse into further arguments on the Democrats’ side and the state’s responses to those arguments.
Wingate said he’s likely to rule on the motions “fairly quickly” because he has a jury trial soon. Franklin Circuit Court Clerk Amy Feldman told the Herald-Leader that trial begins Monday.
Timing
Deputy Attorney General Barry Dunn emphasized numerous timing concerns the state would have if the maps were changed directly as a result of a court ruling or if a court told the legislature to go back to the drawing board.
Harp, a Lexington-based election services vendor, told the state that its deadline to have all ballot information for the May 17 primary is Feb. 23.
Secretary of State Michael Adams, the state’s chief elections official, joined the state in expressing concern over the timing. He said his top priority is ensuring a “smooth election” and avoiding “chaos,” which he said the lawsuit could bring.
Abate didn’t agree.
“What I’m hearing today about ‘chaos’ is that the contract with a vendor who’s going to print some ballots supersedes the text of the Constitution,” Abate said.
Earlier, a house bill sponsored by Rep. Jerry Miller, R-Eastwood, was filed that would have moved the filing deadline to May and the primary date to August. Miller billed it as a safety valve in case the Democrats’ lawsuit dragged on for too long.
Miller withdrew that bill earlier this week.
“Our anticipation is that (the lawsuit) is going to move quickly through the courts,” he told the Herald-Leader.
The county splits
Abate argued, as was stated in the Democrats’ motions, that while the Republicans’ House Bill 2 split the constitutionally required minimum number of counties, it split those 23 counties too many times. The Democrats’ plan splits those counties 60 times, but House Bill 2 splits them 80 times.
“This is the first case where what you have in the record are two competing maps, both of which satisfy the total counties split, and both of which satisfy the population standard — the difference is they decided they had a ‘get out of jail free’ card, and they could aggressively carve up any county that was already split for partisan purposes,” Abate said. “We say you can’t do that because the Constitution says you can’t do that.”
Associate Attorney General Victor Maddox argued that the matter was decided against Abate more than two decades ago — in a Kentucky Supreme Court case he lost.
In the 1997 case Jensen v. Kentucky State Board of Elections, the court ruled against the plaintiff’s argument as represented by Maddox and others that a Democrat-drawn map unnecessarily split Laurel and Pulaski counties.
“I thought that the argument the plaintiffs are making today made sense 25 years ago,” Maddox said. “I argued it and the court rejected it.”
Maddox referenced a dissenting opinion from a former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Joseph Lambert, who was one of two dissenters in a 5-2 ruling.
Lambert wrote that “a county or counties may not be divided at all or any more than is necessary” as map drawers try to meet population requirements.
That argument, Maddox said, did not win the day in 1997 and shouldn’t in 2022.
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