District of the Day 3: Iowa Senate District 24, Iowa House Districts 47 and 48

Senate District 24
Registration: D 12086, R 13465, N 14553, total 40132, R +1379
Incumbent: Jerry Behn, R-Boone

Behn finds himself in a very different place than he was his last election cycle, both politically and geographically. Before his role in the Senate changed to party leader, his district got reconfigured so he loses more constituents than he keeps.

Behn keeps his Boone County base, in fact he now has the whole county. But the old lines went south to take in most of Dallas County, which now dominates TWO new districts.

Behn keeps none of that high-growth Dallas turf. Instead, he gets bits of Story and Webster and all of Hamilton and Greene. Losing Dallas County costs Behn about 3,000 registered Republicans and turns this into a swing district. Teacher Shelly Stotts is the Democratic candidate.

In 2008 in the old lines Behn fended off a comeback attempt from Al Sorensen, who he'd defeated to take the seat in 1996. The rematch was a solid 59% to 41% win.

July 19 Campaign Finance Report: Stotts for Senate, Behn for Senate Behn has $83,383.94 on hand, but he's responsible for more than himself and there's been grumbling he needs to do more. Stotts has $1,528.18.

on hand.
House District 47
Registration: D 6247, R 6514, N 7238, total 20013, R +267
Incumbent: Chip Baltimore, R-Boone; comeback attempt and rematch of 2010 race

A must win for both sides: one of two districts tied for #49 Democratic/#51 Republican.
Baltimore won one of 2010's biggest upsets and closest races, defeating Democrat Donovan Olson by just 23 votes in a seat with an 1100 Democratic registration edge. Olson is making a comeback attempt.

The line changes make this seat a little closer. It most of Boone County, including the city and everything west. It drops Perry in north Dallas county, an area that Olson won in 2010. Instead gets all of Greene County.

July 19 Campaign Finance Report: Baltimore for Iowa House, Olson for State Representative Committee Baltimore has been active, raising $12,737.55
during the June/July period on the report. Most of it's from conservative and business PACs. He has $31,164.23 on hand. So Olson, with $2,604.92 on hand. needs to step up his game (unless he has in the past 30 days).

House District 48
Registration: D 5839, R 6951, N 7315, total 20119, R +1112
No Incumbent

One of the odd features of Iowa Clean Redistricting is the Senate to House move. A Senator might call that a step down, but wouldn't say so to a House member. It's something you only see here and in term limits states, adding more truth to the notion that Clean Redistricting is our version of term limits.

Usually we see one or two of those a decade, and this seat is the only one. For a while it even looked like a 2010 Senate race would be re-played as a 2012 House race. Democrat Rich Olive, who lost the Senate race to Republican Rob Bacon, announced in June. In September, Bacon announced in that he was making the Senate to House move and moving here to get out of his pair-up with Bill Dix.

But in early October, Olive withdrew, and this race immediately became less interesting. Rural Ames Democrat Becky Perkovich joined the race just before the filing March deadline.

This is good Republican territory, but not great.  Hamilton County makes up about half of this district. That was home base for two-term Democrat McKinley Bailey, who lost to Stu Iverson in 2010.

July 19 Campaign Finance Report: Friends of Rob Bacon (Perkovich didn't raise enough to open a committee.)

Senate District 24, House District 47 & 48: District of the Day 1 - 5/26/2011 | District of the Day 2 - 3/16/2012

District Of The Day Reboot: Iowa Senate District 24, Iowa House District 47 & 48

Senate District 24
Registration: D 13188, R 14260, N 17261, total 44744, R +1072
Incumbent: Jerry Behn, R-Boone

A lot has changed for Jerry Behn in the last year. Before his role in the Senate changed to party leader, his district got reconfigured so he loses more constituents than he keeps.

Behn keeps his Boone County base, in fact he now has the whole county. But the old lines went south to take in most of Dallas County, which now dominates TWO new districts. Indeed, Behn's old turf had the second most registered voters of any Senate district, behind only Jack Whitver in Ankeny. Behn keeps none of that high-growth Dallas turf. Instead, he gets bits of Story and Webster and all of Hamilton and Greene.

Republican Senate leaders have lost their jobs all sorts of ways the last few years -- how about in a general election? Losing Dallas County costs Behn about 3,000 registered Republicans and turns this into a swing district. Teacher Shelly Stotts is the Democratic candidate.

Behn went to the Senate in 1996, knocking off Democratic incumbent Al Sorensen. Sorensen made a comeback attempt in 2008 but lost 59% to 41%.

Campaign finance report: Behn for Senate

House District 47
Registration: D 6732, R 6861, N 8882, total 22493, R +129
Incumbent: Chip Baltimore, R-Boone; comeback attempt and rematch of 2010 race

Republican Chip Baltimore won one of 2010's biggest upsets and closest races, defeating Democrat Donovan Olson by just 23 votes in a seat with an 1100 Democratic registration edge. Olson is making a comeback attempt.

Baltimore keeps most of Boone County, including the city and everything west. A few townships shift around on the east. He gives up Perry in north Dallas county, an area that Olson won in 2010. Instead gets all of Greene County. This changes the margin from a Democratic seat to a very close swing seat. Still, this is the kind of race Democrats need to win if they want to recapture the House. The Olson for State Representative Committee had $1813 cash on hand on January 19, mostly left over. Baltimore for Iowa House had $18,000.

House District 48
Registration: D 6456, R 7399, N 8379, total 22251, R +943
No Incumbent

Hamilton County makes up about half of this district. That was home base for two-term Democrat McKinley Bailey, who lost to Stu Iverson in 2010. The new seat also includes parts of rural Boone County, southeast Webster County and a little corner of Story, going all the way up to the Ames city limits. New 48 is good Republican territory, but not great.

For a while it looked like a 2010 Senate race would be re-played as a 2012 House race. Democrat Rich Olive announced in June, and Republican Rob Bacon announced in September that he was making the Senate to House move and moving here to get out of his pair-up with Bill Dix. But in early October, Olive withdrew. Rural Ames Democrat Becky Perkovich joined the race just before the filing deadline.

Campaign finance report: Friends of Rob Bacon

Original post 5/26/2011 Statewide Map: Front | Back (with City Insets) | Old Senate, House

Olive Out in House 48

Former Sen. Rich Olive Out in House 48 Race

Democrat Rich Olive has announced he's out in the House District 48 race, citing family and geography:

This decision did not come easily and was influenced by many factors including health, family, and work but it basically comes down to one thing: my heart is in Story City. In order to be a candidate for the House Seat in District 48, I would have been required to move my primary residence out of Story City and that just simply isn’t an option.

Olive won one Senate term by 61 votes in 2006, and got knocked off by Republican Rob Bacon. The two were set for a rematch in this House district: Bacon got paired up with fellow Republican Bill "I will be seeking a leadership election" Dix in redistricting.

This district belonged to Ames Democrat Lisa Heddens on Map Day, in a My District Just Not My House situation; Heddens has moved back into her House District 46, in the city limits of Ames.

Democrats now need a candidate in this swing seat, which has just a narrow GOP edge. Hamilton County makes up about half of this district. The new seat also includes parts of rural Boone County, southeast Webster County and a little corner of Story, going all the way up to the Ames city limits. What's McKinley Bailey up to these days?

Bacon Makes Senate to House Move

Bacon Makes Senate to House Move

Musical chairs in north central Iowa as freshman Senator Rob Bacon gets out of a pair-up with fellow Republican Bill Dix by running for the House -- and facing the same former senator he knocked off in 2010.

The matchup between Bacon and Democrat Rich Olive will take place in House District 48, which on Map Day was home to Democrat Lisa Heddens in a My District Not My House situation. Heddens has decamped to House 46 in the city of Ames proper.

UPDATE October 7: Olive is out.

This happens at least once every redistricting cycle: a sitting senator gets paired up and runs for the House instead. Three Republicans did it in 2002: Mary Lou Freeman, Gene Maddox, and Sandy Greiner. Whether that's a step up or a step down depends on whether you ask a senator or a representative. Let's put it this way: Greiner jumped at a chance to move back to the Senate in 2010.

Bacon will have to move into House 48, though he had some of the same turf in 2010. He also has to give up the last two years of the Senate term. If neither Bacon or Dix had quit or moved, their terms would have been cut short and the two would have faced off in a primary.

But as a consolation prize, his rollout Thursday was impressive. Check this rogue's gallery:

Also in attendance were Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey; Iowa Senate Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer; Rep. Stewart Iverson Jr., R-Dows; Sen. Jerry Behn, R-Boone, and Rep. Dave Deyoe, R-Nevada.

(Hey, Stew: when are you finally gonna make that Senate announcement?)

In retrospect it's clear Bill Dix was the 800 pound gorilla here. Dix, also elected to the Senate in 2010, now gets to hold over in Senate District 25 until 2014. At that time he may have higher ambitions. So I hear.

So how about the Olive-Bacon rematch itself? The old Senate district had a GOP registration edge of 3290. Olive won by 61 votes in the Democratic wave of 2006; Bacon won handily last year. But the new turf only has a Republican edge (as of April) of 454, which Olive could overcome.

Hamilton County makes up about half of this district. That was home base for two-term Democrat McKinley Bailey, who lost to Iverson in 2010. The new seat also includes parts of rural Boone County, southeast Webster County and a little corner of Story, going all the way up to the Ames city limits.

Also noted: Democrat Sara Sedlacek's announcement in House 88 seems to have spurred the GOP incumbent, Tom Sands, into announcing his own re-election bid. And TheIowaRepublican talks to Annette Sweeney about her überprimary against Pat Grassley.

District of the Day: Senate District 25, House Districts 49 and 50

District of the Day: Senate District 25, House Districts 49 and 50



Two pair makes for a full House, and Senate, in the worst redistricting headache for Republicans.

Senate District 25

Registration: D 9411, R 15497, N 15165, total 40105, R+ 6086
Incumbents: Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock and Rob Bacon, R-Maxwell

UPDATE September 9: Bacon moving to House 48, where he'll have a rematch with Olive.

Bill Dix and Rob Bacon both knocked off Democratic incumbents in 2010, when their districts didn't even border each other. Both live at the very edge of this district. If one backs down, the other holds over in a solidly Republican seat. Neither has a good option to move.

Bacon, who vanquished Landslide Rich Olive, looks like he keeps the larger home turf, the non-Ames part of Story County. The old Bacon district went north and west: Hamilton, Wright, and a little of Webster, all of which he loses. His Maxwell home is maybe a couple miles north of Democrat Dennis Black's swingy district, but that has no overlap with Bacon's old seat which had the same south line. A couple of his old townships overlap with Herman Quirmbach, but that's a good Democratic district.

Dix, who defeated Bill Heckroth, keeps only part of Butler County: Aplington, Parkersburg, New Hartford and his Shell Rock home. He used to go east to Bremer, most of Fayette, and north rural Black Hawk. A lot of that turf to the east is in new Senate 32, now a swingy district held by Democrat Brian Schoenjahn.

Dix gave up his House seat to run Congress in 2006 when Jim Nussle retired, but lost in the primary. Unfortunately for Dix, this area is NOT in Bruce Braley's district; it's in that little easternmost extension of Steve King's.

Bacon and Dix could just duke it out in a primary on relatively neutral ground. Half the district is Hardin and Grundy counties, which neither had before.

House District 49

Registration: D 4999, R 6948, N 7788, total 19755, R+ 1949
Incumbent: Dave Deyoe, R-Nevada

Deyoe was a late starting candidate in 2006, and the only Republican winner in the game of musical chairs that started with Stew Iverson dropping out of his race after being deposed as Senate leader. He won a solid 62% in 2010 against 2006 congressional candidate Selden Spencer (the one the entire Iowa lefty blogosphere kept talking up while ignoring Dave Loebsack).

Deyoe is also the only legislator in the neighborhood who gets lucky in redistricting. This remains a Nevada and rural Story based district, with a couple townships shifting and Story City staying. He sheds southeast Hamilton County and gets the southern half of Hardin, with little impact on the party balance.

House District 50

Registration: D 4412, R 8549, N 7377, total 20350, R+ 4137
Incumbents: Annette Sweeney, R-Alden and Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford.
UPDATE July 7: Both have now announced in this district.

In this corner, a rising star of the legislature. In that corner, a U.S. Senator in waiting. This is one of the two seats, along with the triple-up in House 8, that nearly put the whole Map at risk. And while we have some ideas what could happen in 8, there's no clue yet as to how this one gets worked out.

Since the day Pat Grassley announced for the legislature in 2006, when Bill Dix left to run for Congress, I've been saying The Masterplan is for him to take over for Grandpa in 2016. No one ever denies this. If he comes out of this map alive, he turns the magic Senator age of 30 during the next term, in 2013. He shared the ballot with Grandpa for the first time last year, and no Democrat was up for that challenge.

Sweeney was first elected in 2008. Democrat Tim Hoy had given Polly Granzow a scare in 2006, and Granzow retired. Hoy tried again but Sweeney won by 1000 votes, then scored a two to one win in 2010. Sweeney carried the ball on the no videotaping of farms bill (taking matters into her own hands on one occasion).

The old Sweeney and Grassley districts met at a corner. Grassley had all of Butler, then went east into Bremer to pick up Waverly. Sweeney's old 44th district had all of Hardin (this map has just the north half), then went south to pick up rural Marshall. The 2001 mappers also looped the Wright-Franklin county line around the city of Dows to keep it together. Since precincts can't be divided between legislative districts, and since it was the only part of Franklin in old district 44, the Franklin County part of Dows was the smallest precinct in the state at 40 voters. This cycle, it doesn't seem like there's anything that small.

Whoever stays, or wins, gets a more Republican district than they had before. Grundy County is new to both. Both representatives are farmers, making moving more difficult than, say, buying a house in a different part of West Des Moines or Iowa City.

Grassley has definitively said he's not moving, though that doesn't stop Tyler Mills at Des Moines Free Press from speculating about a move into Waverly-based House 63. It's empty, but Bill Heckroth is on the comeback trail and has already announced.

Sweeney was one of the seven no votes on the map, saying districts were not compact enough and citing the split of Hardin County.

My prediction? Look for Terry Branstad or Bill Northey to offer Sweeney a job sometime around the filing deadline.

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