The New York Times focuses on Nebraska as emblematic of a national shift of state legislative power from rural to urban areas in redistricting to account for urban population growth.

Arkansas could just as well have served as a model, I’d guess. The Delta will lose representation. Northwest Arkansas will add legislators. The farm lobby remains strong, of course, but it represents far fewer people thanks to industrialized farming. Sometimes, you wouldn’t know it from legislative outcomes, such as the long fight to pass modest animal cruelty legislation. Maybe it just shows you can take the people out of the country, but you can’t always take country outlooks out of the people.

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