Boise State University political scientist Gary Moncrief, author of "Reapportionment and Redistricting in the West", writes to note "fun facts" about new map unanimously adopted last week.

Most striking is Districts 8, which runs from 11 miles east of the Oregon border in Gem County to Lemhi County's border with Montana. The district also includes Boise, Valley and Custer counties and was a response to the Idaho Supreme Court's ruling that the redistricting commission's first map divided too many counties.

District 7, a piece of Bonner, along with Shoshone, Clearwater and Idaho counties is another behemoth.

Writes Moncrief:

"The new District 8, at 15,633 square miles, is bigger than NINE states (MD, HI, MA, VT, NH, NJ, CT, DE, RI). The largest of those is Maryland at 12,407 square miles. In fact, the new District 7 (aprox. 14,000 square miles) is also larger than the same 9 states. By the way, of the 9 states identified, all but HI and VT are original 13 states).

"As we noted in 'Reapportionment and Redistricting in the West,' the appearance of some very large districts in western states is a function of rapidly growing population, geographically large states but with very small legislatures (in terms of seats) and the fact that many western states have 40-70% of their population centered in one metropolitan area. All of those things add up to a few rural districts getting very big. There are a couple of HUGE districts in Nevada, for example (and Alaska of course)."

District 8, assuming the plan survives another legal challenge, would pit four GOP House members for two seats, including Caucus Chairman Ken Roberts of Donnelly. Roberts told the Lewiston Tribune, "I actually like the new district. Living in a rural part of the state, I expect to have a rural district. It's going to be challenging for travel, but Lemhi and Custer counties are one of the most beautiful parts of the state, as is Valley County."

Rep. Lenore Barrett of Challis, however, told the Tribune, "It's unfortunate. We're losing the communities of interest, which I think should be the priority."

The Supreme Court, however, made it clear that Idaho's constitutional provision discouraging county splits trumped communities of interest, road access and precinct splits -- factors mentioned in statute, not the constitution.

The two other lawmakers in the big district are Reps. Carlos Bilbao and Steve Thayn of Emmett.

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