The Basin has more constituents than we're getting credit for

by CJ Baker

The COVID-19 pandemic couldn’t have come at a much worse time for the U.S. Census Bureau.

Once a decade, the bureau takes a tally of all the people living in the United States at a certain point in time: in the most recent case, on April 1, 2020. Under normal conditions, counting heads in April is representative of the population, but 2020 was, of course, anything but normal.

The Census date came as federal, state and local governments were shutting down businesses and other aspects of daily life in an effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Given all the restrictions and precautions, it was not a convenient time to conduct a count. But more importantly, anecdotal and preliminary data suggests that the 2020 count quickly became outdated. As restrictions began to ease in some states in the weeks and months following the count, residents seeking fewer restrictions, more social distancing or just a different lifestyle flocked to places like Wyoming.

Park County experienced a surge in new residents that could be palpably felt in a red-hot real estate market. For decades, tales of buyers snapping up properties for more than the asking price — and sight unseen — were the kind of thing that local residents heard from friends and family members in other parts of the country; Park County, we’d say, was generally a steady market.

But that went out the window in the summer of 2020, with buyers at times getting into bidding wars over local properties they’d never actually visited. People poured in from other states — and, anecdotally, it feels as though they’ve continued to do so.

Exactly none of that shift was captured by the 2020 Census — the population count that determines, among other things, so much of the state and federal funding that our local communities receive. The City of Worland is also convinced that they were undercounted. It’s a real shame, and, although Worland leaders plan to appeal their Census figures, it’s something we can do little about; the data gathered amid the height of the pandemic will be one of the primary data points used in planning and funding decisions until another count is conducted in 2030.

However, we hope that our state lawmakers will at least consider the problems with the count as they draw new boundaries for legislative districts. In the fall, the Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee endorsed a plan that would allow the Big Horn Basin to keep its nine seats in the state House and Senate, despite not having quite enough population to stay within the desired parameters. The committee’s goal has been to keep all districts within 10% of one another — with no district more than 5% above or below the ideal population — but the plan would allow the Basin to deviate by 6.2%.

However, there’s some continuing unease about making an exception for this region.

“To me, that is a concern,” state Rep. Cathy Connolly, D-Laramie, said at a Thursday committee meeting, according to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

“It would only work if we all agree that is acceptable,” Connolly said of the Big Horn Basin proposal. “What I see happening is any region that is decreased in their proportional representation certainly will have grounds to make a complaint because of that.”

The Tribune Eagle said Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, also voiced concern that certain areas of the state are being held to different standards in the draft redistricting plan.

“I am really concerned at this point in time that we will get through this thing, and there will be no redistricting plan that passes the Legislature,” Hicks said. “In certain parts of the state, we are quantum leaps away from being able to support the committee plan.”

Lawmakers have an extremely tough task, but we hope they can see the wisdom of keeping the Big Horn Basin intact.

While we in Park, Big Horn, Washakie and Hot Springs counties certainly want to see our representation preserved and maximized, the real argument in support of the Basin’s nine-seat plan is that there aren’t any good alternatives.

For instance, Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, submitted a rather absurd proposal that would have created a massive district stretching from Jackson to Clark — one that would be impossible to effectively represent.

We would add to the argument our strong belief that the Census data has dramatically undercounted the number of people living in the district. While it’s hard to ask legislators to consider anything other than the official population count, it’s also not fair to rely on — and effectively punish our region with — data that certainly seems to be flawed.

-Powell Tribune