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Redrawn Maine legislative districts easily win House, Senate endorsements
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Jun 27, 2013 02:02pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Robert Long |
| News Date | Wednesday, June 5, 2013 08:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | "AUGUSTA, Maine — Redrawn maps of Maine House and Senate districts are on their way to Gov. Paul LePage after gaining overwhelming support in both chambers Wednesday.
Maine must redraw House, Senate and county commission district boundaries every 10 years to account for population changes reflected by the U.S. Census. A 15-member Reapportionment Commission — made up of seven Democrats, seven Republicans and one independent — spent five months reworking the district maps, which will determine Maine’s electoral landscape for legislative races in 2014. The commission released those maps Friday.
A state constitutional amendment that passed in 2011 requires two-thirds majority votes of the House and Senate to approve the new districts. Both chambers easily surpassed those margins Wednesday.
The Senate unanimously backed the redistricting bill, LD 1557, without a roll-call vote after the House endorsed it 133-11. Maine law requires the new districts to win approval by June 11, otherwise the Maine Supreme Judicial Court would be called upon to determine the districts. Court intervention has been required for at least one chamber of the Legislature in each of the past two rounds of redistricting.
Based on the 2010 census, the optimum population for a House district would be 8,797. For a Senate seat, it would be 37,953. According to the House Democratic Office, each of the new 151 House districts and 35 Senate districts would fall within 5 percent of that population target." |
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