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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — Colbert and Lauderdale counties want to stay together, and while Morgan County’s business leaders want a reunion, its smaller-town mayors like where they are, a legislative committee on redistricting learned Monday night.

In a meeting at the Von Braun Center that only featured public comments about redrawing Alabama’s congressional map this year, most of the discussion focused on how it will affect Morgan County and the Muscle Shoals area.

Morgan County is divided by two congressional districts, with most of Decatur and all of Hartselle in the 5th District of U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and the remainder of its population is in U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt’s 4th District.

It was the first of six public hearings to be held by the Permanent Legislative Committee on Reapportionment in the next nine days. The committee wants to present a redrawn congressional map to the Alabama Legislature for consideration on May 24. The new map is supposed to be in effect for the 2012 congressional elections.

There are lots of puzzle pieces in play, but the key is each of Alabama’s seven congressional districts has to end up with 686,000 residents. The 4th District needs to add about 23,000 residents, while the 5th District has to lose around 35,000.

Adding all 120,000 Morgan County residents to the 5th District would mean other parts of the district, which includes Madison, Colbert, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence and LImestone counties, would have to be moved from the 5th to the 4th District.

But it’s a political map, so it isn’t simply a math problem.

Committee officials said they would like to be able to approve a plan during the current legislative session.

Jim Page, a vice president with the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce, spoke at the hearing and said that in 2001 the map was redrawn to benefit then-U.S. House members.

He said the chamber and its supporters want to see Morgan County placed back in one district, preferably the 5th District. He said at the absolute minimum they want Decatur to be completely in one district.

Page said there are very close economic ties between Morgan County and the 5th District, with some 9,000 Morgan residents traveling to Madison County to work each day.

But Priceville Mayor Melvin Duran said the smaller cities in Morgan County like being in the 4th District and would be glad to stay there.

There was no mixed message from the delegation of 24 people from the 5th District Muscle Shoals’ counties of Colbert and Lauderdale who spoke with one voice at the meeting. In simple terms, if Morgan County’s roughly 60,000 additional residents were added to the 5th District, that district would be over its limit by about 95,000 residents.

Lauderdale County has about 93,000 residents, which helps the math work, but the Shoals delegation doesn’t want to see Colbert and Lauderdale split up.

They said the area is tied together economically and its growth started when they began cooperating some 25 years ago. The mix of elected and business officials said they wouldn’t mind a move to the 4th District as long as they were together.

Alabama’s Permanent Legislative Committee on Reapportionment is hosting a series of public hearings concerning the redrawing Alabama’s congressional and state school board districts:
May 10 – Birmingham, 6:30 p.m.
May 11 – Mobile, 6:30 p.m.
May 12 – Montgomery, 3:30 p.m.
May 13 – Selma, 6:30 p.m.
May 18 – Montgomery, 2 p.m.

For meeting details and locations, visit http://www.legislature.state.al.us/reapportionment/reap.html

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