Make room on the shelf for a new bobblehead

Nerd that I am, I can't resist burning up hours staring at the new congressional district maps in Oregon. They were signed into law yesterday, the deadline.

Instead of the current five districts, we now get six, and they sure do make for some strange bedfellows. As I noted yesterday, Lake Oswego is now in with Bend, and in that district (no. 5) are also included Dunthorpe, a southerly sliver of southeast Portland, Milwaukie, Canby, Sunriver, and way down there, Lebanon. What do all those places have in common? Not much. Paleness of complexion, perhaps. 

Kurt Schrader, the fake Democrat in the current delegation, currently lives in Canby.

Here are highlights of the other five new combos, as best I can make them out on some relatively crude maps:

1.  Beaverton, Hillsboro, Aloha, much (but not all) of Washington County, all of Columbia County, Clatsop County, Tillamook County, the west side of Portland, a small part of inner southeast Portland, a tiny sliver of inner northeast Portland (current representative for most of it: Bonamici)

2. Eastern Oregon (but not Bend or Sunriver), Medford, Ashland, Klamath Falls, Grants Pass (Bentz, the only Republican)

3. Southeast Portland (except inner and far south Southeast), North and almost all of Northeast Portland, Troutdale, Sandy, Hood River (Blumenauer)

4. Eugene, Corvallis, Lincoln City, Roseburg, all of South Coast (De Fazio)

6. Raleigh Hills, Tigard, Sherwood, Tualatin, Wilsonville, Newberg, Salem, McMinnville, Yamhill County, Polk County (new)

Maybe Schrader will run for the Sixth instead of the Fifth. Either way, I hope he gets bounced in the primary.

People within the Portland city limits have had three different congressional representatives for a while now. Schrader currently represents a few Portlanders, with the vast majority split up between Bonamici and Blumenauer. But now the city will be divided among four members of the House (1, 3, 5, 6), with Raleigh Hills in a new district that extends down through Salem and almost to Albany.

The first elections in the new configuration will be the primaries this coming spring. The new representatives won't be seated until January 2023.

I suppose it's possible that some sort of legal challenge could upset this apple cart, but I don't think such a lawsuit would have much chance of success – despite the weirdness of some of these district boundaries.