2nd District boundary to expand southward

AUGUSTA – The state’s sprawling 2nd Congressional District – already the largest east of the Mississippi River – will grow even bigger when its boundary with the state’s only other U.S. House district is redrawn on the basis of the 2000 census.

“No doubt it will continue its march south,” said Richard Sherwood, an analyst with the Maine State Planning Office. “But where the lines are drawn is really up to the reapportionment process.”

Maine added about 50,000 people in the 1990s but the growth was far from even. About two-thirds of the increase in population occurred in the 1st Congressional District, and some areas of the 2nd District, such as Aroostook County, saw a significant decrease in residents.

While Maine is not growing as fast as the rest of the country, the state will continue to have two representatives as a result of this census, and experts expect that will hold through the next census as well.

The state has had two members of the U.S. House of Representatives since 1962, losing a seat after the 1960 census. The state once boasted eight members of congress, but that was in the 1830s when the state had significant population growth.

There are constitutional parameters for the reapportionment process, but they leave wide latitude to the states. That has led to some interesting proposals as both major parties have sought to gain an advantage, such as the Democrats proposing in 1983 to move Androscoggin County from the 2nd Congressional District to the 1st District. That would have put Olympia Snowe and John McKernan – both Republican House members at the time – in the same district.

“It was a good try on their part,” Snowe said jokingly. She married McKernan in 1990 after he was elected governor in 1986. “It certainly could have changed things. I might not be in the Senate now if that had happened,” Snowe said.

Purely political proposals are just part of the reapportionment process, Snowe said, and she expects both parties will make some in the upcoming round of discussions. She joked that one advantage to being in the U.S. Senate and representing the entire state is that redistricting does not directly affect her anymore.

But Snowe defended keeping Androscoggin County in the 2nd District.

“We have to divide some of the more populated areas between the districts or you will have one with all the more highly populated communities in one district and the other district with all the less populated communities, and it becomes a real rural district,” Snowe said. “I think it would be best to have a balance in the districts.”

In 1983, half of Waldo County was shifted to the 2nd District.

The rest followed in 1993 along with a few towns in Kennebec County. The march south could continue along the coast with part of Knox County being shifted to the 2nd District, or the Legislature or the courts could take a different direction.

“They could get really creative,” said Bowdoin College professor Chris Potholm, “and make some major changes, but I don’t think that is likely.”

For example, both Oxford and Androscoggin counties, currently in the 2nd District, could be shifted to the 1st District, with Kennebec and Knox counties shifted to the 2nd. And it might even take a little bit of Lincoln County to make the numbers balance out.

“Who knows?” said Senate President Mike Michaud, D-East Millinocket, as he unrolled a census map of the state. “Clearly, I suspect we will see a lot of interesting proposals before it is all done.”