Washington County’s state legislative representation will be cut in half in 2022 following Governor Kim Reynolds signing Iowa’s new congressional and legislative district maps into law.

Reynolds’ announcement of the finalized maps last Thursday follows the Republican-controlled legislature’s approval of the second set of maps drawn by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency, after they rejected the first set on a party-line vote on October 5th. These maps, which will take effect in next year’s election, now place Representative Jarad Klein (R), who currently represents District 78 which covers all of Keokuk and most of Washington counties, now in District 92, excluding Keokuk, “The new district is very much the way it was previously over 10 years ago with it being Washington and southern Johnson county, now it encompasses a little bit more. It’s very much a better fit so I think this set of maps was a good one to go ahead and accept. I mean it was done the way we’ve always done it in a really nonpartisan, really the gold standard across the country for how you redistrict without doing any gerrymandering or any of those sort of things. We just take the formula, apply it and then you go from there.”

Senator Kevin Kinney (D), who currently represents most of Washington and much of Johnson counties along with all of Keokuk County, would now be placed in District 46. This district represents much of Johnson, and all of Washington and Iowa counties, where he would have to run against current District 38 Republican Senator Dawn Driscoll. Kinney voted in favor of both proposed maps, “Dawn Driscoll is from Iowa County. I’ve known Dawn for a long time, she’s a good person and when we run against each other I think it’s going to be a positive campaign.”

As for the legislators who will no longer serve Washington County in 2023, District 84 Representative Joe Mitchell would now have to run against fellow Republican representative Jeff Shipley for District 87, and District 42 Senator Jeff Reichman would face off against another Republican Senator Tim Goodwin for District 50. On the Congressional level, Washington County will now be in the first district rather than the second, and current District 1 Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) would reside in District 3 with Congresswoman Cindy Axne (D).