State Sen. Brad Hawkins of the 12th Legislative District released the following statement following today’s announcement by the state Redistricting Commission that it was not able to reach agreement on final plans for new legislative and congressional district boundaries for the next decade, starting in 2022.
“Today’s news about our Redistricting Commission being unable to come to an agreement on rebalanced state legislative and federal congressional districts is very disappointing as I know the commissioners worked very hard and collected substantial public comment. Washington state has a proud history of bipartisan success with our redistricting process,” said Hawkins.
“The inability of the commission to reach an agreement is a huge setback and it’s discouraging. The later-than-usual Census data was a big factor, but politics is always at play. Hopefully, the commission’s inability to reach agreement is not a sign that the growing political divide in our country is beginning to threaten our redistricting process. The process going forward is uncertain. By law, jurisdiction over redistricting is now transferred to our State Supreme Court. This has never occurred before, so predicting the process beyond today is anybody’s guess. This is a result none of us wanted. I suspect the State Supreme Court feels the same way.”