Next Up, Legislative Redistricting

John Lyon with our content partner, the Arkansas News Bureau, moves to the next highly controversial state capitol matter – legislative redistricting – even though Congressional redistricting remains unsolved. Legislative redistricting is handled by the Board of Apportionment, which consists of the Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State.

Like congressional districts, state legislative districts must be redrawn every 10 years to reflect population shifts shown in U.S. Census data. The 2010 census shows that population levels continued to increase over the past decade in Central and Northwest Arkansas and to decline in the southern and eastern parts of the state.

The target population for redrawn districts is 83,311 for each of the state’s 35 Senate districts and 29,159 for each of the 100 House districts. By law, the variance in population between districts cannot be more than 10 percent.

Other redistricting criteria include not discriminating against minority groups, maintaining communities of interest where possible and making districts contiguous — i.e., no non-contiguous “islands.”

Lyon interviews Republican and Democratic legislators for perspective on how the process works – warts and all. You can access the full article here.