Redistricting peace is welcome

Congratulations to the state’s Redistricting Commission for reaching a tentative plan to redraw Montana’s legislative districts — an obviously difficult task that has historically been extremely contentious.

Much of the credit goes to retired state Supreme Court Justice Jim Regnier for prodding the two Democrats and two Republicans on the commission to compromise and actually reach consensus. The tentative plan was approved by the commission with a remarkable 5-0 vote from Regnier, Democrats Joe Lamson and Pat Smith and Republicans Jon Bennion and Linda Vaughey.

Regnier, who lives in Lakeside, fortunately didn’t have to be the tiebreaker for a plan that was thoroughly unacceptable to one side or the other. This time around it seems that both sides had to give up some to get some of what they wanted, and nobody got everything they wanted.

That’s how it should be, and the key was having an arbiter such as Regnier guiding the process.

“I wouldn’t let ’em leave ’til we had something,” Regnier told the Billings Gazette, referring to last week’s final push for the plan.

Regnier said that sticking to tight population criteria was important in the process; the tentative plan has an average variance for House districts that is just 1.22 percent from the target population of 9,894 for each district.

Commission members say the plan can still be tweaked before it is forwarded to the 2013 Legislature. After making so much progress, we hope nothing will come up to undermine the plan’s current unanimous support.

Northwest Montana can only benefit from a recent $200,000 grant that will be used to expand commercial air service between Glacier Park International Airport and the Los Angeles Basin.

The federal grant will effectively be a subsidy to help establish a carrier for direct flights that currently don’t exist. There is no target date for the service to begin, but a carrier has been identified.

Any expanded air transportation capability should be a benefit for those coming to or leaving the Flathead for business or pleasure. We welcome the grant and hope to see it bring an L.A. connection here.