WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – North country congresswoman Elise Stefanik may end up representing all of Fort Drum and Watertown, after all.
If that sentence confuses you, you’re not alone.
Stefanik represents all of Drum and Watertown and the rest of Jefferson County already. But…
Back in February, Democrats in the state legislature in Albany drew all new lines for every congressional district in New York. They were trying to give themselves an advantage in the elections coming up this November, and as part of that, they broke Jefferson County into pieces. Stefanik kept the northernmost part of Drum, where the training areas are, and some of the north and east parts of Jefferson County. The new district lines would have taken effect next year.
But then there was a lawsuit brought by Republicans, and eventually the state’s highest court threw out all the new congressional districts, with orders for an outside expert to come up with yet another set of lines for congressional districts in the state.
While the outside expert works, anyone with an opinion about how the lines should be drawn can submit papers. Both the Democrats who control the state legislature and the Republicans who challenged the Democrats have now done so, and both versions of the maps restore all of Jefferson County, Watertown, Fort Drum to NY-21, the congressional district Stefanik has represented for the last eight years.
(Credit where credit’s due: former Watertown mayor and radio talk show host Jeff Graham got there first, posting a note about the maps on his blog. )
Now, just because both sides in this dispute have proposed putting Jefferson County back together again, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. That will be up to the outside expert and a judge in Steuben County, where the lawsuit to throw out the districts was first filed.
But cutting up Jefferson County never seemed to make a lot of sense to, well, anybody. So don’t be surprised to see Stefanik back in as our representative in congress, Look for the outside expert’s maps to be done in the next few days – we’ll know for sure then.
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