Every ten years in state capitals across the country, lawmakers undertake the constitutional requirement to redraw district boundaries given population shifts. Nebraska state legislators faced a shortened time to get this job done after the release of the Census 2020 results. Redistricting will impact political representation at the local level and power in the U.S. Congress for the next ten years. What are the lessons learned from Nebraska’s redistricting process and considerations for moving forward? State Senators Wendy DeBoer and Matt Williams join University of Nebraska-Lincoln political scientist John Hibbing for a discussion of Nebraska’s redistricting experience, and its implications for the state and nation. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Elizabeth Theiss-Morse from the UNL Department of Political Science.
Advance registration required: https://go.unl.edu/redistricting
Panelists:
Senator Wendy DeBoer represents District 10 in the Nebraska Legislature. She graduated from the University of Nebraska College of Law and practiced law in Kansas City before being elected to the Nebraska Legislature in 2018. In 2021 she was elected Vice-Chair of the Rules committee.
Senator Matt Williams represents District 36 in the Nebraska Legislature. He currently serves as Chair of the Banking, Commerce, and Insurance Committee, Vice Chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, and the Legislature’s Economic Development Task Force.
John R. Hibbing is the Foundation Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska where he specializes in the intersection of biology and people’s political orientations. He has been named a Guggenheim Fellow, a NATO Fellow in Science, and he is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Panel Moderator:
Elizabeth Theiss-Morse’s research is in the areas of American politics and political psychology. She is specifically interested in public opinion concerning various aspects of democracy, including electoral behavior, tolerance, democratic processes, and American identity. Her book Who Counts as an American? The Boundaries of National Identity was winner of the Robert Lane Award for the best book on political psychology.