Hampton gives thoughts on district map lawsuit

Within the past week, with only weeks away when candidates in the State of Missouri were to begin filing for office, two new challenges have been brought against the redistricting of both the Senate and the House.

Just last Tuesday, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the new State Districts and sided with the challengers of the redistricting plan. The latest challenge comes in the form of a lawsuit that was filed on Monday over the new maps concerning the House of Representatives. These latest developments could cast more uncertainty into the upcoming 2012 election. Filing for office is due to begin on Feb. 28.

Further legal review into the new U.S. House map by a trial court is to be conducted and completed by Feb. 3. The redistricting process for the Missouri State Senate will be starting over again.

Those challenging the new House districts include five Republicans and eight Democrats as well as one independent.

Although State Representative Kent Hampton is not one of those included in the new legal challenge, when contacted, he gave his thoughts on the situation.

"A law suit was filed by about a dozen folks arguing that the new House district maps drawn by the same panel of appellate judges that drew the Senate map violates requirements that districts be compact, contiguous, and have similar population," Hampton said. "Their lawsuit stems from the fact that some areas are spread out, that they're not compact and also there is a variance in the population within some of the districts itself, some being greater and some being fewer than others.

"They have tried to advance this forward to go ahead and move it to the Supreme Court to get an immediate decision as quick as possible without going through another appellate court because the filing begins on Feb. 28."

Hampton added that without a decision and if it is not identified at that point in time, the filing date may be backed up to sometime in March when a decision has been reached and the candidates are aware of what the districts they will be representing will consist of.

Regarding the question of how pushing the filing date for candidates would affect the election itself, Hampton answered, "I'd say in some instances and I view this more for the general public than I do for the candidates itself. The general public needs to be aware of how their district is now going to be broken down for the year 2013 and who are the possible representatives to represent them. My greatest concern is for the citizens of the State of Missouri, more so than it is for the candidates itself.

"Some would argue that the campaign session is excessively long to begin with so mine is about the citizens itself, whether they'll have the opportunity to meet, greet, visit, know where candidates stand on issues and know who their contacts are in case they need help in certain instances."

Hampton noted that he hopes a decision will be made within a two-week time frame.

"We hope so that they can go ahead and use the Feb. 28, filing deadline that begins the filing for the elections itself," Hampton said. "They're trying to bypass on the House map on the lower court and go straight to the Supreme Court which should give it a quicker time frame," he added.

When asked what would happen if a decision could not be reached, Hampton commented, "If a decision cannot be reached, I think all options are on the table. In other words, the election filing dates could be moved back, the other thing, and I'm just throwing this out, I don't know any of this to be true. The districts could remain in the way they previously were from 2001."

He emphasized again how these were only possible avenues that could be taken, not something that a decision had already been made upon.

Hampton continued, "I have to believe that with the uncertainty, the bad press judges and the courts are receiving through all of this, that an immediate appropriate decision will be rendered."

The ideal population of each state House district should be 36,742 in population. The recent map that was filed by the Appellate Apportionment Commission has districts ranging in population from 35,303 on the low side to 38,170 on the high side which includes the 63rd district which partially covers some of St. Charles and Warren Counties.

Those who are opposing the new House maps say that one-third of the new House districts differ from at least three percent or 1,100 people from the ideal population of 36,742. One reason for this could be that districts with too many people are located next to districts too few people. Another objection that is stated in the lawsuit says that maps that were suggested by members of the bipartisan redistricting committee that failed to agree had closer population margins.

As well as the population differences, another contention is that some of the districts are not contiguous since they cross rivers that have no bridges.

* Associated Press writer Chris Blank, Associated Press contributed to this report.