To the Honorable Joint Committee Chairs: Co-Chair Rep. Shawn Lindsay, Co-Chair; Rep.

Chris
Garrett, Co-Chair; Senator Suzanne Bonamici, and committee members

I am Janice Dysinger a resident of Multnomah County for 20 years, I have a small organic rose nursery,
LifeRoses.com which I am trying to save.

I would like to ask this committee as it considers the division of the various boundaries for the
redistricting maps to please respect the rural, suburban and urban nature of the districts. Placing two or
all three of the different types of areas into a single district is the opposite of the intent of ORS
188.010's purpose of communities of common interest. This is just vital when considering Multnomah
County which is so diverse in its make up of citizens. Rural farming and natural resource areas have a
much different lifestyle than folks in Old Town, NW Portland and the Pearl District. The lives of busy
suburban families is another group that are in between, but probably have more in common with the
farming communities.

I see no reason to combine the rural and farming areas with the downtown population, their goals and
lifestyle reflect such different needs. That is unless it is to dilute the voting strength of these farmers as
we have seen in highly partisan Bradbury plan. Partisan reasons are banned by ORS 188.010.

There is no reason the city of Portland with a total population of a little over 500,000 residents, well
under the 766 thousand target population for Congressional district should get three representatives in
Congress. But that is where we find our selves at present. Please put aside the partisan practice of the
past and end the demographic misrepresentation. This would bring justice for the entire population of
the county. Portland should only have one Congressional representative and it has been manipulated to
effluence three. This leaves the other two districts misrepresented.

The vast majority of Oregonians reside outside the city of Portland. ORS 188.010 basic law require that
these residents have representation as well. Oregonians feel they are being held hostage by partisan
map drafter. It is not the intent of our laws or the people. It is an unjust practice of politicians in the
practice of gerrymandering. We want a fair and accurate representation.

Please stop this practice and eliminate the “fingers” and “peninsulas”. The odd shaped districts are
obvious even to the regular folks, who know they are being gamed by politicians. We are tired of being
only considered a chess piece on a game board. We have real lives and real needs.

The politicians have had undue power when a single party has the Governor's office and the Secretary
of State (who is the backup for drawing the legislative plans). The party in control of both of those
offices has so much leveraging power and so little incentive to come fair agreement for all the citizens.
It just perpetuates the partisanship process and disregards the statute's intent.

Please change the statute to move this process to and independent commission as many other states
have done. Oregonians want fair representation!

Thank you for hearing my testimony today.

Respectfully,
Janice Dysinger
503 757 0670