HCS/SS#2/SJR 48 - This proposed constitutional amendment, if approved by the voters, provides that all meetings of any Senate or House apportionment commission, including any appellate apportionment commission, shall be public, and that such commissions shall be subject to general laws concerning open records and open meetings. The amendment prohibits any member of an apportionment commission created for redistricting the House of Representatives or the Senate from serving as a member of the General Assembly for six years after the date of their appointment to the commission by the Governor. Under current provisions of the Constitution, such members are prohibited from serving in the General Assembly for four years after the filing of the statement and map with the Secretary of State. The amendment prohibits current state employees and officials from serving on a commission. With regard to the Senate apportionment commission, the amendment requires the state political committees to consider geographic representation of the state when making such appointments.
Along with the final statement and map filed with the Secretary of State, this amendment requires the commissions to include the reasons or grounds for the numbers and the boundaries of the districts.
The amendment provides that no more than two members of any district of the court of appeals may be appointed to an appellate judicial commission that created to produce a map when a Senate or House commission fails to do so.
The amendment repeals current provisions of the Constitution that allowed districts to be altered from time to time as public convenience may require and allows redistricting only upon a decennial census or if a reapportionment map has been invalidated by a court.
This amendment is similar to HCS/SJR 37 (2012).
JIM ERTLE