A Democratic plan for redistricting N.C. House seats would divide Rowan County among four representatives.

“I think it’s lousy,” says Rep. Eugene McCombs, R-Rowan. “... I think that’s terrible because nobody would know who their representative was.”

Rowan County currently has two representatives, Democrat Lorene Coates in House District 35 and McCombs in House District 83.

A plan submitted this week by Ronnie Sutton, D-Robeson, would renumber all the House districts in the state and make Rowan County part of four different districts: 66, 75, 76 and 89. Sutton is co-chair of the House Redistricting Committee.

District 75 and 76 would roughly follow the present districts of Coates and McCombs, respectively, except that Coates’ District 75 would extend into Iredell County, picking up three precincts, including two in Statesville.

Otherwise, the new District 75 would include 18 Rowan precincts.

McCombs’ new District 76 would have 21 Rowan precincts.

In addition, the new House District 66, which roughly follows Rep. Jerry Dockham’s current 94th District, would include three Rowan precincts taken away from McCombs: Morgan I and II and Gold Knob.

“If you remember Gold Knob,” McCombs says, “it’s only two miles from my house.”

The rest of District 66 would include five precincts in Cabarrus County, nine in Davidson County and nine in Stanly County. Dockham, an insurance agent from Denton, would have to run in a district that touches four different counties.

“Iwould hate to have to run and do business in four counties,” McCombs says.

The new House District 89 would include much of Rep. Frank Mitchell’s current 42nd District in Iredell County, but it would pick up two Rowan County precincts: Bradshaw and Mount Ulla, which now belong to Coates.

The rest of District 89 would have 13 Iredell County precincts.

“Of course, this is not set in iron,” Coates says of the Democratic plan, and she expects numerous adjustments to be proposed in the coming week.

But Coates says she’ll try to do the best she can with whatever district is handed her to defend in 2002.

“I didn’t have a say-so in the district I ran in before,” Coates notes.

The possibility of her district extending into Iredell County does not trouble her. She often visited Iredell in her years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Republican co-chair of the House Redistricting Committee, Rep. Larry Justus, R-Henderson, also has submitted a plan for redistricting.

“It’s really a fairer plan,” McCombs says.

The U.S. Justice Department must approve final House District boundaries before they can be used for the 2002 election. The state Senate already has approved its new district boundaries, going with a Democratic plan described by Senate Republicans as political gerrymandering.

In that proposal, Rowan County would have two senators in districts now represented by Democrat Cal Cunningham of Lexington and Republican Stan Bingham of Rowan County. Rowan would lose Republican Sen. Fletcher Hartsell of Concord.

Lawmakers are trying to adjust district boundaries to reflect population shifts revealed by the 2000 Census. They also have yet to redraw the state’s congressional districts.

McCombs says the average state House district is supposed to have about 67,000 people, and he expressed concern that many of the proposed districts, including his, are several percentage points off.

McCombs says Republicans believe the Democratic plan proposed by Sutton would cost the GOP “10 seats right off the bat.” The Democratic plan has incumbents facing each other in seven redrawn districts. Of those seven proposed districts, five would have Republican incumbents facing each other.

“That means we’d lose five seats right there,” McCombs says.

Republican plan

The GOP plan would divide Rowan County among three state representatives, adding Hugh Holliman’s House District 37 into the mix with the existing districts of Coates and McCombs.

Coates would lose traditionally Democratic precincts of East Spencer, Spencer, Trading Ford and East Ward I and II. They would go to Holliman, a Democrat from Lexington. The Republican plan also would put the strong Republican precincts of East and West Enochville in Democrat Coates’ district.

The Republican plan also calls for Coates’ district to extend into Iredell County, picking up three precincts.

Cabarrus changes

Both the Democrat and GOP plans would mean changes for Cabarrus County’s House representation.

Cabarrus County is presently divided among three representatives: Republicans Linda Johnson of Kannapolis, Jeff Barnhardt of Concord and Bobby Barbee of Locust, in Stanly County.

The number of House representatives would remain the same for Cabarrus, though both plans would expand legislators’ districts into Mecklenburg County.

The Democratic plan would have Dockham’s new District 66 picking up five Cabarrus County precincts. Renumbered, a new District 77 (Johnson) would have 20 Cabarrus County precincts and two in Mecklenburg. A new District 78 (Barnhardt) would have 17 Cabarrus precincts and two Mecklenburg precincts.

The GOP plan would retain Barnhardt’s District 81 and Johnson’s District 90 and add a new District 100.

Barnhardt’s district would include 11 Cabarrus County precincts, two in Mecklenburg and eight in Union County.

Johnson’s 90th District would have 20 Cabarrus County precincts and one in Mecklenburg.

The new District 100 would have 11 Cabarrus precincts and nine Mecklenburg precincts.

Information on both plans is available on the General Assembly’s Web site at www.ncleg.org .

Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263 or mwineka@salisburypost.com .