Legislative Redistricting
 | Author:
MT43 News Staff
Nancy Marks: MT43 News Secretary and News Editor |
Legislative Redistricting MT43 News Staff
As the Montana Districting and Apportionment Commission convened this week in Helena for a four-day work session, it appeared that Broadwater County is certain to be sliced into two state House legislative districts.
The five-member panel is nearing the final stage of developing its plan for dividing the state’s population to fit into new election districts for 100 seats in the House and 50 in the Senate. Going into this week, the commission had already developed four tentative maps, each with its own combination of boundaries for the House districts. In each case, Broadwater is carved into two pieces.
One map puts about half of Broadwater County residents into a district running more than 150 road miles across four counties, from north of Winston to south of Lavina. On that map, the other roughly half of Broadwater people would be attached to part of Gallatin County.
This contrasts with the existing apportionment in which all of Broadwater County is in a single district, House 70, which covers all of Broadwater plus a small portion of adjoining Lewis and Clark County.
The commission took public comments on proposed House district maps during nine public hearings in August and September. The next opportunity for in-person and remote testimony will be on Dec. 10 when the commission takes comments on the proposed districts as evolved at this week’s work session. This may include pairings of the 100 House districts to create 50 Senate Districts. The meeting is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Room 102 of the Capitol Building.
For details on how to participate, visit the commission’s website at mtredistricting.gov.
Legislative and congressional districts are reapportioned once every 10 years to equalize district populations with counts of the latest U.S. census. As a result of population gain, Montana has been awarded a second seat in the U.S. House. As apportioned by the commission in November last year, District 1 covers about the western one-third of Montana and District 2 the eastern two-thirds. Both seats were won by Republicans in the general election this year, Ryan Zinke in the west and Matt Rosendale in the east.
The commission will submit its legislative redistricting plan to the 2023 legislature within 10 days after the legislature convenes on Jan. 2. The legislature then has 30 days to recommend changes. After that, the commission will accept final public comments. The commission is to submit its final plan to the secretary of state within 30 days of receiving the Legislature’s recommendations.
Two members of the commission, Jeff Essman and Dan Stusek were appointed by Republican legislative leaders, and two, Denise Juneau and Kendra Miller, by Democratic legislative leaders. The fifth, Maylinn Smith, is the presiding officer appointed by the Montana Supreme Court.
