With Iowa’s Redistricting Deadline Looming, Ernst Urges Census Bureau to Quickly Get Data to the State, After COVID-Related Delays

WASHINGTON – As Iowa’s deadline for submitting its new legislative redistricting map approaches later this year, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is urging the U.S. Census Bureau to expedite getting its 2020 data to the state after delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Iowa’s state constitution requires state lawmakers to submit and sign into law a new legislative redistricting map by September 15, 2021. If the new map is not finalized by then, the Iowa Supreme Court is required to draw it, bypassing the bipartisan commission that would otherwise provide the general assembly with draft maps and taking the redistricting process out of the hands of the state legislature.

 

Today, Ernst sent a letter to the U.S. Census Bureau describing the urgent need to get the 2020 census data to Iowa “as soon as possible.”

 

Click here to see Ernst’s full letter to U.S. Census Bureau Acting Director Ron Jarmin.