Colleagues,

I will soon be introducing legislation proposing a constitutional amendment to reform the Legislative Reapportionment Commission responsible for developing the district plans for the General Assembly after each Census. In recent decades, the work of this Commission has become increasingly contentious, and the district plans enacted for this decade were actively harmful to our Commonwealth’s communities and political health.

With my reforms, a bipartisan vote of 4/5 commission members would be required to approve and district plan; all submissions and changes made by the Commission in developing district plans must be disclosed publicly; timelines for debate would be extended; and all members of the General Assembly would be required to submit, alone or as a group, comments reflecting their districts’ communities of interest.
 
Together, these reforms can ensure that future reapportionment processes are bipartisan, more transparent, and better serving of our Commonwealth’s public interest. Please join me in sponsoring this legislation.