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When the legislature redistricts, one element is deviance. Each time, the body determines how much deviance in population will be acceptable from one district to another. Comments from Former State Senator Gerald Conway. Watch this clip in:
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The deviation target this time is back to 5%. Former State Senator Gerald Conway says that may cause problems later. Watch this clip in:
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Reported by Statewide correspondent, Perry Stoner.

[Connie Day] "And I do remember the day where they passed the legislation where we lost our county. Because I picked up the phone, called Jerry Conway and said, what in the world are you doing? Taking our county away from us."
[Gerald Conway] "There's lots of countries that lines that can't be followed, practicable or any way possible, and still meet one man-one vote."
He didn't quite take the county, just its perceived clout in the Legislature. That's what happens when boundaries get changed.
[Conway] "We would also make for communities of interest and try to bring communities that had like concerns in the same district."
Rural Madison County. It looks like a lot of counties in Nebraska. But ten years ago the county was divided. Neighbors here probably feel like they have a lot in common but in 1991, after the Nebraska Unicameral redrew the legislative lines, this house in Madison County was in one district and this house was in another.
[Jim Scheer] "We felt that we had been taken advantage of. It was viewed as our county's seat and we weren't about to lose that. At least not under our watch."
Many feel the person most responsible for splitting the county was state senator Gerry Conway. He was chair of the Government Committee, given the task of redistricting.
[Conway] "Doing redistricting, the way that its done whether it was done with a computer or done by hand the way it was once done, is a matter of putting together a puzzle. And the puzzle has to be complete. "
Conway now teaches at Wayne State College. That's the part of the state he represented in the Unicameral. So he wasn't unfamiliar with nearby Madison County. One of the puzzle pieces put the eastern part of Madison with Stanton County to the east.
[Conway] "What happened with Madison County was that the word got out that Senator Peterson, who was serving at that time, was not returning. He was retiring after that period. And so that made that a little more vulnerable in terms of some movement… some action that could be had there."
It would seem Conway has a point. Woodland Park is an unincorporated area less than five miles from Norfolk. It's not in Madison County like Norfolk, its in Stanton County. But the area of four to five thousand residents is in the Norfolk school district. One of Norfolk's elementary schools is even there.
[Conway] "So our decision was to take Madison County and take the western two-thirds, which was predominantly rural, smaller communities and allow them to be represented by (at that time and still) Senator Dierks who basically had other similar communities. And then let Norfolk be combined in this area so it would be basically Stanton County and the metro part of the city of Norfolk within that and split that."
So in 1991 the statewide plan including Madison County was approved by the Unicameral 37-10. That map, in the eyes of some, was illogical and maybe illegal. Part of the redistricting guidelines says county lines must be followed where practicable. Madison County by itself had just about the right population to remain a Legislative district, much like it had been for years.
Usually Republicans and Democrats are opponents, but cutting Madison County in two brought the two county parties together. They filed a lawsuit to have the Unicameral's plan thrown out.
[Scheer] "I think part of that process initially, in order for I think us to be successful both in the eyes of the community as well as in being reputable to the Legislature and Supreme Court, I think it had to be as broad-based appeal as possible. I don't think it would have been viewed as well if it had been the Democrats challenging, or the Republicans. I think it had to be the county that was challenging the law. "
[Day] "But it was a David versus Goliath. I mean, that's the way we felt."
David won in the Nebraska State Supreme Court. Madison County should be its own district. The chain reaction that followed that ruling meant redrawing other Legislative lines since each of the 49 districts must have a population as equal as the other districts as possible. A full year after approving the first map the Unicameral went into special session to draw lines again. By then, the 1992 Primary elections had already occurred.
[Conway] "What happened then come election were the two people who had won the primaries no longer had a district. That district didn't exist again because we had to meld it in with others and lo and behold they weren't up for election now. And Madison County was going to be up for election. Madison County had not had a Primary and so they had a General election with however many people ran whoever got the most votes was going to be the winner. And that's what happened."
One factor that made redistricting difficult ten years ago faces lawmakers again this year. Many rural areas of the state lost population. What the Legislature must do is adjust the lines so each of the 49 senators represents roughly the same number of constituents.
[Conway] "We started west and as you can see we added two counties here. And all of a sudden this thing stpers coming like a tidal wave in terms of picking up more geography. By the time we got a third of the way across the state there was enough territory that we needed that you would literally leapfrog over a whole district. In essence eliminating a district."
[John Hibbing] "The real controversy then comes in where exactly are we going to draw the lines."
Professor John Hibbing says some states have changed their system for redistricting. Iowa for example has a nonpartisan group take on the task.
[Hibbing] "There are some states that take it out of the Legislature. Reasoning that maybe legislators shouldn't kind of be in charge of their own destiny that way. That there'd be a more objective decision made if outsiders were doing it."
This year Senator George Coordson chairs the committee in charge of redistricting. He saw the process last time as a member of the Unicameral and wants everything as open as possible this time because he knows it's an emotional and political exercise.
[George Coordson] "It's always been my philosophy that the more ideas, the more people that are involved in looking at a problem, the better the solution to the problem is. We're trying to make every effort to put every piece of information on our website that would be valuable to any interested individual or group of individuals or entity in the state of Nebraska that might have a quote - better idea."
Technology will make the process more open. The latest computer program is quicker and easier to use than in the past. That allows more lawmakers to get their hands on the information earlier in the process.
[Coordson] "I think we have the equipment, the hardware and the software, and the rules in place to do as good of a job of drawing all of the various district lines as its possible to do. That's excluding the political pressure, but I don't know how we could help people any more than what we have."
Several maps need to be drawn in a matter of weeks. State senators will haggle over the three congressional districts. The latest population change requires that about 35 thousand Nebraskans be moved from the First District to the Third. If one county just happened to have that many residents the solution might be simple. It just so happens; Madison County is ground zero again. The committee proposes moving it to the Third District and some of the residents don't want to be moved.
[Dover] "Its about keeping our representative that we have in Congress right now and we've had a good relationship with Congressman Bereuter and we want to maintain that."
[Lou Pofahl] "We have a much greater economic tie to northeast Nebraska and the First District than we do to the Third District."
[Dover] "As a constituent of Norfolk, Madison County, I would strongly urge you to support keeping Madison County in the First Congressional District. Madison County, Norfolk with its geographical location in northeast Nebraska is vitally important to the First District. It's the hub of northeast…"
This time Madison County is proactive. They're expressing their desires in a letter-writing campaign.
[Pofahl] "What the Legislature is going to be looking at is convenience. And redistricting should not be about convenience because it would be convenient to move Madison County in that Third District. But redistricting should be about representation. And representation here means that we need to have a voice…"
[Hibbing] "And the Democrats, of course, want counties that are already heavily Republican to be shifted out there because they've given up on the Third District in terms of their chances of competing and… And the Republicans would like to take districts that are maybe a little bit less… less Republican already so that they continue to do well in the District."
Madison County is heavily Republican. Some residents hope that their participation early in the process will avoid problems that happened ten years ago.
[Scheer] "Quite frankly we sort of learned our lessons that you can't sit back and wait for it to happen, and then try to react. Because although we were successful, I wouldn't bank on that being the norm. I think that was the exception."
There are no guarantees. Now those that want Madison County to stay in the First Congressional District have to hope they can change the committee's mind at a public hearing. The senators must make tough choices and all the pieces of the puzzle have to fit.
[Conway] "It'll always be a bit cantankerous. There will always be a few people in the Legislature who will step up from a statewide perspective and create complete plans. There will always be those that only care about theirs. And its bringing that together is what the political process is all about and I'm sure that it'll go quite well."
The proposed maps are in place for the public hearing scheduled for Saturday May 5th. Then the committee will present plans to the full Legislature for debate and approval. That might be when the real politics start. And the real lines are drawn.