By Dave Baumeister
County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – In its final meeting of 2021, on Tuesday, Dec. 28, the Minnehaha County Commission heard from Auditor Ben Kyte, who told them how major legislative redistricting changes for 2022 would affect county elections.
The 2020 U.S. Census showed an increase in South Dakota’s population, and almost 40% of the 72,487 increase came in Minnehaha County, alone.
Because of that, the county will go from having eight districts to nine in the legislature.
Showing a map of the new districts, Kyte explained that of the 127,000 Minnehaha County voters, 60,000 will now be in new legislative districts.
And because precincts could still essentially be the same, there may not be much of a change as to where people vote.
The biggest change on the map, though, can be seen in District 25, which had been seemingly gerrymandered after the 2010 Census to cover the northern and western parts of the county, then completely bypass Brandon in a small corridor that ran along the eastern edge of the county, and picked up the extreme southeastern part of Sioux Falls.
For 2022 in Minnehaha County, this odd district has been done away with on the new map from the legislature.
However, District 25, which had encompassed Garretson and Dell Rapids, now adds Hartford on the opposite side of the county to its legislative mix, as it takes up the widest swath of land in the county.
But unlike the 2011 map, it has been drawn more contiguously, representing all of central and northern Minnehaha, from east to west, and dropping down to pick up the mainly rural western side of the county.
District 25 now includes all the main Minnehaha municipalities, except Sioux Falls, Hartford and Brandon.
And on top of that, the new District 25 extends north into Moody County, adding the municipalities of Flandreau, Elkton, Coleman and Egan.
District 9, which had snaked into Sioux Falls to pick up the western edge of the city, will still hold a small part of western Sioux Falls, but will mainly be focused on the Hartford area.
And on the opposite side of the county, District 2 now forms an almost perfect square and covers Brandon and the eastern part of Minnehaha, all the way to the Minnesota border.
The city of Sioux Falls will be made up of Districts 10 through 15, with Districts 12, 13 and 14 picking up parts of the city that run into Lincoln County.
The bottom line of all this, is that the new map will greatly affect who is and can run for state legislature from which districts.
For example, currently, District 25 is totally represented by legislators from Dell Rapids in the northeastern part of the county, Marsha Symens, Jon Hansen and Tom Pischke.
Voters now in Districit 25 might want more representation from their part of Minnehaha and/or Moody Counties.
The new Moody County-inclusive map brings Rep. Randy Gross from District 8 of Elkton into the mix.
One legislator who currently serves District 10 and would be redistricted into 25, as well, is Rep. Steve Haugaard of rural Sioux Falls. However, he has announced he will be seeking the Republican nomination for governor in a primary against incumbent Gov. Kristi Noem.
If Haugaard does file for the governor’s race, he would be unable to run for the legislature, unless he loses, in which case, he could run as an Independent.
Now, as the new District 2, the Brandon area may also see an interesting election, although in that case, it will be because of the lack of incumbent candidates.
Rep. Doug Barthel, who currently serves Brandon in District 10, will continue to live in the new District 2, but there will be no other legislative incumbents in District 2.
Over the next two months, Kyte said, the auditor’s office will be working on updating voter registrations to indicate the new legislative districts.
