The unkindest cut

The first time I spoke with state Sen. Jason Rapert, at least by my memory, and I think I would remember something before because blustery sanctimony leaves a mark, it was by phone not quite a decade ago.

I don’t remember the reason I called him. But I well recall that, in the course of things, he went off on then Gov. Mike Beebe and then-Attorney General Dustin McDaniel.

As he saw it, and as was arguably the case, they’d exercised their Democratic control of the three-person state Board of Apportionment to redraw state legislative districts in a way clearly designed to keep him from returning to the state Senate.

But he returned, to which he was saying thank the Lord and righteousness, and I was saying darnit and wondering why Beebe and McDaniel couldn’t have run Rapert’s district from his Bigelow home along a narrow strip down the center line of Arkansas 10 into an expanse through central and eastern Little Rock.

It is possible, you see, that partisan political interest enters into the decennial redistricting process after a new census. Which we’re into now, by the way.

Fast-forward with me to the occasion early this year when state senators chose committee assignments. Rapert, having achieved seniority despite the noble Democratic creativity of a decade before, passed on an opportunity to remain chairman of the powerful Insurance and Commerce Committee, where the business people with money get their interests attended to.

Instead, Rapert chose the chairmanship of the State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee. And why would he do that? He plainly declared the reason at the time. He said that committee would be the place to do the once-in-a-decade exercise of redrawing the state’s four congressional districts and that he wanted to be a part of that.

Oh, boy, I said to myself. Fast-forward with me now to last week, one week before the reconvening of the Arkansas General Assembly to do the redistricting, with activity to be centered in the joint committees of State Agencies and Governmental Affairs under the co-leadership of Rapert and likely rubber-stamped from there by the full House and Senate.

Three bills were filed by two senators from the extremist-right wing of the state Senate to carve up Pulaski County, a rare — and large — Democratic county, three ways.

Pulaski has long been snug in the Second Congressional District, an island of central Arkansas dwarfed by the sparsely populated expanses of the First and Fourth Districts. And Pulaski has lately cast almost half the votes in the 2nd District, though not quite enough, which is how Republican French Hill has fended off Democratic challenges from Clarke Tucker and Joyce Elliott.

He routinely gets routed in Pulaski and then routinely wins Saline, Faulkner and White by more than he lost Pulaski.

But it’s darned inconvenient for him.

By any of these maps proposed by Sens. Bart Hester of Cave Springs and Alan Clark of Lonsdale, Pulaski would be split three ways among the 1st, 2nd and 4th Districts. Its Democratic strength, such as it’s been, would be sapped into thirds.

I have not studied any of the plans with a microscope. Thus, I cannot confirm a report that, by one of them, I would be in one congressional district in my living room and another congressional district on my porch.

Some would say it should be good for Pulaski to have three congressmen. And Pulaski Countians would say, yeah, but they’re Bruce Westerman, Rick Crawford and Hill.

So, here’s the question: Is that gerrymandering? “That’s baloney,” Rapert said to me by phone last week.

And, by the way, he said, if you want to talk about gerrymandering, let him remind you what Democrats have been doing in this state for 138 years and specifically what Mike Beebe and Dustin McDaniel tried to do to him a mere decade ago.

So, is all this a matter of revenge and punishment?

Oh, no, Rapert said. He was just making a point.

He said — and this is mildly clever, if transparently partisan — that there is logic to it all.

He said the supposed virtue of redistricting was keeping counties intact, not splitting them among districts. But he said that wasn’t possible under the prevailing court-allowed population deviations for districts.

So, he said, why not keep 74 of the 75 counties whole and make the necessary adjustments only in the one happening to be square in the middle and having the most people for divvying up?

All this gets started Wednesday at the state Capitol. I’d predict a hellacious fight, although I can’t imagine what weapons Pulaski County and Democrats possess for battle.

People in Pulaski might want to demonstrate, but I’m not sure how passionate they’re going to be about chanting and carrying signs for the cause of keeping French Hill as their congressman.