House Republican leaders are offering a legislative redistricting plan that would force eight incumbents to run against each other next year.
The map unveiled today by House GOP Leader Jeff Hoover affects four Republicans and four Democratic lawmakers. Hoover says the GOP plan is very different from a plan put forth earlier this year by Democrats that had nine Republicans running against each other but no Democrats.
"So what we proposed today is a much fairer plan which puts one pair of Democrat incumbents against each other, one pair of Republican incumbents against each other and then two what are called mixed pairings where there's an incumbent Republican against an incumbent Democrat."
Given population shifts in Kentucky over the past decade, Hoover says it's impossible to re-draw legislative boundaries without pitting incumbents against each other.
The GOP proposal would put Democrats Rocky Adkins and Kevin Sinnette in a match-up and Republicans Toby Herald and Marie Rader in another contest. Republican C.B. Embry and Democrat Brent Yonts would face off in a mixed incumbent race, as would Republican Bart Rowland and Democrat Wilson Stone.
The General Assembly convenes in special session August 19th to re-draw legislative boundaries to reflect population changes recorded by the U.S. Census.
