As the public Democratic member of the state’s Congressional Reapportionment Commission, I was surprised to read the revisionist history contained in the guest column by Rep. Ken Fredette, published in the Sun Journal on Oct. 9.

The bipartisan reapportionment commission was charged with advising the Maine Legislature on how to redraw the state’s congressional district lines to more equally split the population.

Fredette inaccurately said Democrats on our commission rejected the Waterville-Winlsow map when it was first offered at the beginning of negotiations in August. The Republicans never provided that map. As a member of the commission, I would know because I never saw it. It was never provided to me. It was never made public. No journalist had it. It had no public hearing. It wasn’t on a public website.

How could I make a decision about such an important issue without having seen it? It was never provided to any Democratic commission member.

The truth is that Republican lawmakers overreached with their radical map that moved 360,000 Maine people from one congressional district to another. Maine people soundly rejected it and the GOP’s partisan threats to force the radical plan through with a majority vote.

Fredette says, “Each time a map was presented to Democrats, they would raise objections.” The Republicans publicly released and offered Democrats two radical maps. Democrats stood with the public against those radical maps. We publicly offered three moderate proposals that are very similar to the map that passed last month.

Republicans only released the compromise map as public opinion mounted against them the weekend prior to the vote.

Rep. Fredette played a key role in brokering the sensible compromise that earned strong legislative support and kept the matter out of an unpredictable court battle.

I’m particularly surprised by his column because he worked with key Democrats to put a stop to the very partisan and childish games that dominated the negotiations.

The redistricting vote was a victory for Maine people, whose voices resounded loudly in the halls of Augusta. We can make a difference when we stand together.

Don’t be fooled by Republican attempts to rewrite history.

Richard Grandmaison, Lewiston