Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins says he anticipates -quote - “a pretty solid ten years of Republican dominance” in the state legislature. Blevins partly bases that on legislative redistricting actions in Frankfort. He also expects one or more lawsuits to be filed in connection with the redrawing of political boundaries. “I do think there will be legal action taken, particularly with congressional districts. That first congressional district as on…. any discerning citizen can look at that map and go “wow” that’s just broken. So, I can’t believe that will survive legal challenge,” said Blevins.
The veteran county clerk from Lexington added he’s not an attorney and so he’s not sure what it would take to overturn that drawing of the line. Blevins said this redistricting process actually creates less than ususal redistricting work for county election officials. “For county clerks, this will actually be one of the easier redistricting changes, because they used precinct boundaries as opposed to census blocks this time, which will be there won’t be any split precincts statewide. That helps the county clerks out quite a bit,” explained Blevins.
Blevins does have concerns about the redistricting process. He said he would prefer to see an independent commission redraw legislative lines. Blevins noted that would prevent either political party from gerrymandering districts for partisan benefit.