Gov. Kim Reynolds signs Iowa's new redistricting maps into law

Gov. Kim Reynolds on Thursday signed Iowa's new congressional and legislative boundaries into law, her office announced.

Without any public ceremony, Reynolds' signature solidified the state's new political lines for the next decade. Her signature ends a process prolonged for months due to delays in the release of the U.S. Census data used to draw the maps.

"I am confident in how the process played out — just as the law intended, and I believe these new districts will fairly and accurately represent the citizens of Iowa for the next decade,” Reynolds said in a statement.

State lawmakers — facing a Dec. 1 deadline — approved the maps in late October. The approved lines were a second draft drawn by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency.

More: Iowa lawmakers accept second redistricting plan, setting up next decade of politics

Iowa's decennial redistricting process is heralded as a national nonpartisan model in what is inherently a political exercise. Lawmakers can only amend map boundaries if they reject the first two sets of maps and receive a third map from the state's nonpartisan mapmakers.

The new maps will be effective beginning with the 2022 elections.

After passage of maps, Republicans dismiss Democrats' fears of gerrymandering????

Democrats had been sounding the alarm for months out of concern that Republicans would use their majorities to redraw lines that were more political advantageous to them on a third map. National experts had also wondered if the political climate had become so heated that Iowa's nonpartisan redistricting model might be put to the test.

But in approving the maps, which kept the state's largest populations centers in four distinct congressional districts, Republicans dismissed Democrats' concerns of potential gerrymandering.

"Despite years of fear-mongering about gerrymandering and claims the first map could not be improved, the Iowa Senate followed the process outlined in Iowa Code, and a more compact map with better population differences has been approved," Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, R-Ankeny, said of the vote.

Democrats were skeptical of Senate Republicans' stated reasons for rejecting the first set of nonpartisan maps, which would have grouped together more legislative incumbents and would have placed incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson in a more Democratic congressional district, potentially jeopardizing her reelection plans.

Republicans had said they rejected the first set maps based on technical issues and asked the Legislative Services Agency to better balance population equity and compactness in the districts.

Senate Minority Leader Zach Wahls, D-Coralville, said he believes Democrats' concerns were legitimate because Republicans hadn't publicly ruled out altering a third map.

"it would have been a lot easier if they had just said that they weren't going to gerrymander," he said during an Oct. 29 taping of "Iowa Press."

New maps pit existing lawmakers against colleagues

Dozens of state lawmakers will be forced to decide whether to seek reelection or primary one of their colleagues after being drawn into new districts.

Some have already begun to announce their reelection plans.

In Congress, Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks faces a daunting choice. The 2nd Congressional District she currently represents was split roughly nearly in half into the new 1st and 3rd Districts.

More: Iowa is done with state redistricting. Now it's decision time for incumbents.

Democrat Cindy Axne of West Des Moines currently represents the 3rd district. She has not announced her reelection as she weighs a potential gubernatorial bid.

Local governments such as school boards and city councils take up the redistricting process next.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa's new congressional districts signed into law by Gov. Reynolds