Inslee won’t call special session to deal with controversy over legislative district map

Gov. Jay Inslee will not bring lawmakers back to Olympia to reconvene the state’s bipartisan Redistricting Commission, making it almost certain that a federal judge will draw a new map for a Yakima Valley legislative district.

“The governor is not going to call a special session,” Inslee Press Secretary Mike Faulk said Monday.

Lawmakers can call one on their own. Inslee won’t stand in their way, Faulk said. Nor does he oppose the court redrawing the 15th Legislative District after its boundaries were invalidated last month by a federal court ruling.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik, siding with voters who brought a lawsuit, found the current district boundaries undermine the ability of Latino voters to participate equally in elections in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Lasnik called for the reconvening of the Redistricting Commission to redraw the district map and deliver it to the state Legislature by Jan. 8, 2024. If it doesn’t, then he said the court would carry out the task.

It takes a two-thirds vote in each chamber to reactivate the commission. The Legislature’s next regular session is not scheduled to begin until Jan. 8.

Meanwhile, last Friday, a panel of three federal judges dismissed a second suit challenging the district’s boundaries, saying its arguments, while different, were moot because of Lasnik’s earlier ruling. 

The district now encompasses parts of five counties in south-central Washington and is represented by three Republicans. During the trial conducted by Lasnik, potential maps put forth by Latino voters who sued showed an easier path for Democrats to win.

Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, on Monday, said the GOP caucus would “whole-heartedly support” reconvening the redistricting panel. 

Voters created the bipartisan commission to prevent backroom redistricting deals and attempts to gerrymander, Braun said in a statement.

“If majority leadership prevents the Legislature from reconvening the Redistricting Commission, it will be another effort on their part to abdicate our duty and authority to another branch of government for political gains,” he said.

House and Senate members in the Latino Caucus are “not interested in having the commission come back together,” said Sen. Rebecca Saldana, D-Seattle, the deputy majority leader and a member of the group.

“We want to see a judge take the map and figure it out,” she said. Those pushing for sending it to the commission “are trying to delay justice.”