A pandemic political deal and feuding Democrats have made for a noisy start to redistricting for the 2022 election.

What was supposed to be a solo slam dunk has turned into a three-way high speed slam dance.

Not just Democrats vs. Republicans, but Democrats vs. Democrats.

“It’s just inexplicable and arrogant,” U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, told Politico magazine last month.

“Like shooting yourself in the head,” said U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Salem, told the magazine.

The Democratic duo’s sharp attack wasn’t aimed at former President Donald Trump or U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

Their target was Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, who had just struck a deal to get Republicans to stop a slowdown of legislation during the 2021 session. 

In exchange for taking their foot of the brake, Kotek appointed House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, to the House Redistricting Committee. The move would give the panel three Democrats and three Republicans. 

Kotek told reporters during a press call after the session ended that she made the deal out of concern for COVID-19 and the clock. Drazan had used archaic parliamentary rules to make passage of each bill a laborious time-consuming process.

The constitution required the Legislature to adjourn by June 27. Outbreaks of COVID-19 among lawmakers and staff had forced the House to close down for several days scattered through the session that began in January.

A protracted stop could push the House to the deadline with major bills on housing, unemployment, health, and a host of other issues still waiting for action.

Besides, Kotek argued, Democrats have made the case in the past that a less partisan approach to redistricting was good government.

National Democrats didn’t find out about the deal until it was done. Many were apoplectic over the “unilaterally disarming” of the party’s political advantage to control redistricting. 

The GOP had not been nearly as generous with red state “trifectas” – where the party controlled both chambers of the legislature and the governorship. 

“In rabid partisan states that are controlled by Republicans, they’re carving up left and right,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Virginia.

Many states with a heavy Democratic tilt among voters – including California and Washington – had in recent years shifted control of redistricting from lawmakers to independent commissions.

Oregon is a rarity on the national political map. It’s Democrats who have the trifecta. They even flipped the secretary of state office in 2020. Shemia Fagan, a former Democratic state senator from Portland, is now Oregon’s official election referee. 

Even with a new seat, Oregon will still have only six House members in Oregon – and at least one is going to be a Republican. But Democrats need all the help they can get in 2022.

Since World War II, the party of a new president — Republican or Democrat — has averaged a loss of 26 seats in the House at the first midterm election.

The Senate is harder to forecast because of its staggered six-year terms. But the new president’s party averaged a loss of two Senate seats in the first midterm voting.

If history sticks to the script, Republicans will wake up the morning after the Nov. 8, 2022 election in control of the House and Senate.

The national political map will have to play itself out over the 15 months until the 2022 general election.

The big question in Oregon was when the Legislature would get the block-by-block U.S. Census data needed to create balanced legislative and congressional districts.

On Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau made an appearance at the National Conference of State Legislatures meeting in Salt Lake City. It addressed whether it would meet the Aug. 15 deadline. 

“Right now, they say they will,” said Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, vice-chair of the Senate Redistricting Committee.

It was also a rare piece of good news for Oregon Democrats who have seen their early expectations for 2022 redistricting become shriveled and tangled. 

Democrats expected a smooth path for its proposed political maps. The party held big majorities in both chambers of the Legislature and a fellow Democrat, Gov. Kate Brown, would likely give a swift stamp of approval.

There would be none of the partisan drama of the the 2002 redistricting or the forced-smile compromise of the 2012 districts drawn by a power-split Legislature.

For 2022, Democrats would make the maps. A Democrat would approve the maps. The shrunken ranks of Republican lawmakers could make noise, but not much else.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and like every other part of life, redistricting plans went splat.

The virus made the national headcount go through fits of stops and starts. Target dates for getting data to the Oregon Legislature were pushed back again and again. Constitutional deadlines were missed. The Oregon Supreme Court had to step in.

It ordered a timeline do-over. But at politically hypersonic speed.

While waiting for the detailed data, the House and Senate redistricting committees could consider the big picture numbers that had already been sent by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The official 2020 population of Oregon was 4,237,256.

In the Legislature, each of the 30 Senate districts would include an average of 141,242 people. Nestled within each Senate district would be two House districts — a total of 60 — with an average population of 70,621.

For Congress, Oregon would add a sixth seat, with each congressional district expected to average 706,209 people.

The raw census data gave some hints on where things might bulge and shrink. The Bend area and suburban Portland showed the highest rates of growth over the past 10 years. That would mean more and geographically tighter districts.

Conversely, the slower-growing or stalled population counts in eastern and southwestern Oregon would likely lead to to fewer and geographically bigger districts.

But exactly where and how much the changes would affect any one area will have to wait for the deeper data arriving in August.

Even then, the legislative committees can look but not touch – any official proposal has to wait until the Legislature is called into special session.

The two committees plan on holding hearings in a “road show” around the state in early September.

It begins in Bend on Sept. 8, then moves on to Eugene, Oregon City, Beaverton/Hillsboro, and Portland before coming back to Salem for three hearings in one day on Sept. 13. 

Lawmakers hope to be able to give residents an inkling of the state’s future political topography.

“The goal is to have at least one option for legislative and Congressional districts” to show the public, Knopp said.

Many details remain blurry. Since the committee will have its early discussions outside of a legislative session, any maps will be pencil drawings with an eraser nearby.

Kotek’s deal with House Republicans has raised questions about hearings. Previously, the committee in each chamber had a Democratic chair and a 3-2 Democratic voting majority.

Now the House Committee would have a Democrat and Republican as co-chairs and a 3-3 partisan split.

How to get everything done with the compressed timeline is also being figured out on the fly.

Originally, the Legislature would have had two months beginning in April and ending in June to draft, debate and approve the new maps.

Now it’s one week.

The special session begins Sept. 20. The Oregon Supreme Court has set Sept. 27 as the deadline for delivering the maps to the seven justices.

The anger from DeFazio and Schrader toward Kotek is fueled by a possible nightmare scenario for congressional Democrats.

If redistricting stalls in the Legislature or Brown rejects the lawmakers’ draft, the fallback plan splits the fate of the maps in two.

Fagan, the secretary of state, would get a shot at drawing legislative districts that she would send to the Oregon Supreme Court.

The law requires politically balanced maps, but Fagan is no neophyte to Oregon politics. She knows the political pecking order in both parties and how redistricting choices could impact personal and working relationships in Salem.

But Fagan would not touch the congressional maps. The job would go to a special five-judge panel – one from each of the five current congressional districts.

Who would end up on the panel and what direction they would take with redistricting would be a wild card in the entire process.

DeFazio and Schrader’s criticism of Kotek came with the implicit message that her action could create an outcome less favorable to Democrats, especially those outside of the speakers’ orbit.

In words that echoed Republican complaints about Kotek, DeFazio told Politico the speaker disregards the impact of her actions on anyone south of the Interstate 5/Interstate 205 interchange.

“She is totally Portland-centric, and nothing outside of Multnomah County exists so far as she’s concerned,” DeFazio told Politico.

The current five districts give Democrats in the 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts in and around Portland a sizeable edge.

Republicans are ceded the 2nd Congressional District, taking up everything east of the Cascades, along with a slice of the southwest around Medford and Ashland. It’s massive in square miles, but mostly sparsely populated.

The closest contests are in the two remaining districts.

DeFazio’s 4th Congressional District seat stretches from liberal Corvallis and Eugene south to conservative Roseburg and Grants Pass. 

Schrader’s 5th Congressional District seat looks like a capital letter “T” tilted on its side, with a long stretch of coast, Salem, some rural areas. The suburbs of Portland and Salem in the district are home to many swing voters.

Though DeFazio and Schrader have won re-election several times, their victory margins are not as comfortable as their colleagues to the north. 

In 2016 and 2020 races, the widely read Cook Political Report at times rated the “Partisan Index” of the districts as “Even.”

Some involved in the redistricting process say the concept of simply taking the current map and adding a few stretches and curves to fit a sixth district is too simplistic.

Sen. Kathleen Taylor, D-Milwaukie, chair of the Senate Redistricting Committee, said the detailed data will show demographic and geographic shifts unfamiliar to those accustomed to the current congressional map.

The puzzle isn’t just where each piece fits, but the size and shape of each puzzle piece. The result will likely go beyond getting the 6th Congressional District to “fit” in the alignments that resulted from the redistricting for 2012.

“All of the five current districts will need to change as well,” Taylor said. “So, the question may more accurately be posed as to how will Oregon’s six congressional districts look?”

The vague outlines of that future will start to come into view in less than a month.