County Commissioner Redistricting

Under current law, certain boards of county commissioners must appoint county commissioner redistricting commissions to adopt plans to divide the relevant counties into as many county commissioner districts as there are county commissioners elected by voters of their district (plan). The bill requires these boards of county commissioners to appoint independent county commissioner redistricting commissions (commissions) , modifies the criteria for who may serve on these commissions, allows these boards of county commissioners to remove members from the commission for cause, allows these boards of county commissioners to direct a commission to modify a proposed plan under certain conditions, and requires the these boards of county commissioners to adopt a final plan that was one of the final plans approved by an independent county commissioner redistricting a commission. The bill also removes the role of advisory committees in the process of adopting a plan and divides that role among staff and the independent county commissioner redistricting commissions. The bill explicitly allows any qualified elector of a county to challenge the adoption of a plan by an action in the district court.

Further, the bill requires an independent county commissioner redistricting commission a commission to adopt a numerical measure of county commissioner district competitiveness and to use that measure , and any other measure of competitiveness adopted by the commission, in determining county commissioner districts.

(Note: Italicized words indicate new material added to the original summary; dashes through words indicate deletions from the original summary.)

(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)