Plan To Redistrict Idaho Could Change Magic Valley Makeup.

The activity known as “redistricting” and described as a blood-sport is continuing as mandated by Idaho law.  The purpose is to reform legislative district lines throughout the state so each district has roughly between 42,000 and 47,000residents.  According to the Times News the latest plan being discussed would  carve the city of Twin Falls into its own district, changing the makeup of the Magic Valley’s representation in the Capitol.  The plan would make a separate legislative district out of most of rural Twin Falls County and all of Jerome County. The proposal would  change District 24, which currently consists of part of Twin Falls, rural western Twin Falls County and Owyhee County  and to the Oregon border. For that to happen, the three Democrat commissioners on the state’s six-member Commission for Reapportionment would need to convince at least one of the three Republican commissioners to support it.  At over 77,000 residents Twin Falls County has too many people to for the 42,000 to 47,000 range that each of the state’s 35 districts must strive for and yet too few to be broken into two districts on its own.  The consensus is that Twin Falls County is going to have to be divided because there isn’t a population small enough to give an even number of districts.  The next meeting will be held Monday at the Capital in Boise.