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OKLAHOMA CITY Peace seems to reign in legislative land when it comes to the new district lines for state House and Senate districts.

In the end, most of the 48 state senators and 101 state representatives are looking at districts for the next Legislature (whether or not they are seeking reelection) which they can live with, in the characteristic legislative parlance.

When it comes to the proposed new lines for the states five U.S. Congressional Districts?

Not so much.

In fact, the difference in response to the congressional plan versus the legislative plans might be deemed the difference between night and day.

Final plans likely by Friday, but Democrats not happy

Republicans will likely get their way by Thursday or Friday of this week on all of the new lines, but rhetorical exchanges began in the days before the special session which convened on Monday, continued today (Tuesday) and will no doubt continue across the finish line.

Democrats in both chambers want to change the way Oklahomas Congressional lines are drawn.

Oklahomans deserve better than the same old political gerrymandering, said Senate Democratic Leader Kay Floyd, D-Oklahoma City in a Monday (November 15) press release.

The legislature should vote on a fair congressional map this week.

In a legislative press release, State Rep. Andy Fugate, D-Del City, said of his partys alternative vision, The legislation we propose will create an independent, non-partisan redistricting process. Weve had a century of the same old game being played by politicians and power brokers. Its time to stop the games.

Alicia Andrews, leader of the Oklahoma state Democratic party, said in an earlier statement shared with The Oklahoma City Sentinel, "The Republican-Super-Majority legislature has told Oklahoma voters that they do not matter. The newly released redistricting map is nothing more than Republicans protecting their super majority at the expense of silencing marginalized communities. This carved up map demonstrates how Republicans want to control who is heard or not heard at the polls.

Andy Moore, executive director of People Not Politicians, also jabbed at the plan recently: "The congressional map is pretty clearly drawn to protect incumbent politicians. And it very clearly cuts up Oklahoma City."

Sean Murphy, reporting this week for The Associated Press, summarized the impact of the likely Congressional framework with these words:

The proposed new map carves out a large portion of Democratic precincts on the south side and central core of Oklahoma City and places them in the heavily Republican 3rd District that stretches across northwest Oklahoma into the Panhandle. The new map also adds more rural voters in Logan and Lincoln counties.

State Rep. Forrest Bennett, a south Oklahoma City Democrat, said, If you look at Oklahoma County, it looks like they took a big ol' bite out of the southwest corner.

In any case, as Murphy summed up, around 181,000 Oklahoma County residents, many from the Hispanic population on the south side, would be shifted into the Third Congressional District if the Republican plan is enacted.

The plan would have practical benefit to incumbent U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Oklahoma City, seeking reelection for the first time.

As pointed out in this reporters previous analysis, the Republican plan is actually evocative of congressional redistricting undertaken in 1982 and 1992, aiming to sustain an existing advantage for Democrats by putting much of south Oklahoma City in the old Sixth District (now the bulk of the Third).

Democrats controlled every reapportionment/redistricting process for most of Oklahomas history, although that dominance began to fade after the 2000 Census.

As debate continues, it is the involvement of the People Not Politics group that sharpened the rhetoric of Republican legislative leaders early this week.

GOP Legislative Leaders Blast Democratic Proposal, and dark money group

A joint House-Senate GOP release on Monday declared, Democrat legislators filed last-minute legislation containing a proposed congressional redistricting map drawn by People Not Politicians, a nonprofit advocacy organization that has not publicly disclosed its donors or Internal Revenue Service Form 990.

Democrat legislators also filed a measure repeating a redistricting commission proposal by People Not Politicians in Initiative Petition 430 which would result in Oklahoma having more than 48 senators and which was unsuccessful at the Oklahoma Supreme Court. According to nonprofit tracking service GuideStar, People Not Politicians has more than $335,000 in gross receipts since its formation.

Speaker of the House Charles McCall, R-Atoka, elaborated the Republican view:

We are proud the Oklahoma map is more compact overall, protects military bases and incorporates widespread public input that the Democrat map ignores. Its disappointing Democrats have adopted redistricting plans by a secretive dark money group that has refused to disclose its donors so Oklahomans can know whether national Democrat partisans are the true funders of the groups advocacy.

Since the head of People Not Politicians also runs Freedom of Information Oklahoma, we are calling on legislative Democrats to join Republicans in urging People Not Politicians to provide the same kind of transparency FOI Oklahoma advocates for by disclosing all its donors.

The GOP joint release included these details: The map People Not Politicians proposed and Democrats filed takes military communities out of Congressional District 4, while the Oklahoma map the states redistricting process produced continues to keep those communities in the district due to overwhelming public comment in support of the approach, which has been successful in Oklahoma for 40 years.

The Legislatures redistricting process was the most open and transparent in history, said Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City.

We asked for and received input from Oklahomans; and those sentiments helped guide the work of our redistricting committees. Our commitment to transparency and our inclusion of public input from all parts of the state, yielded good maps for both legislative and congressional boundaries. I am proud of the work of the Legislature and think it reflects well on the wishes of Oklahomans.

Treat added: Democrats have copied and pasted a congressional map by a secretive group, likely funded by dark money, and led by a partisan political mercenary who ironically leads a pro-transparency media advocacy group. Regardless of what they are hiding, they have the same goal as Nancy Pelosi and former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder: electing liberals to office.

And with the [proposed] redistricting commission, they also are copying the effort of Pelosi and Holder to push a federal takeover of state elections.

Dont believe the rhetoric about fair maps. Democrats didnt produce a fair map. They have concocted a map solely to get liberals elected in Oklahoma.

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Night and Day: Oklahoma Legislative Majority and Minority party views of proposed Congressional lines News Analysis - City-sentinel