A bill for an act
relating to redistricting; establishing redistricting principles; providing measures
for evaluating redistricting plans.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:
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Minnesota legislative districts should be created using a fair and open process that limits
the ability of legislators to draw districts that favor themselves or their party. Legislative
districts should be as free from political bias as possible. Ideally, legislative districts should
be drawn by a nonpartisan redistricting commission. However, because no such commission
exists in Minnesota, the principles set forth in section 2 must be used to draw legislative
districts.
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The principles in this section apply to legislative districts.
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(a) The congressional district numbers shall begin with
Congressional District 1 in the southeast corner of the state and end with Congressional
District 8 in the northeast corner of the state.
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(b) The legislative districts shall be numbered in a regular series, beginning with House
District 1A in the northwest corner of the state and proceeding across the state from west
to east, north to south, but bypassing the 11-county metropolitan area until the southeast
corner has been reached; then to the 11-county metropolitan area, as defined in Minnesota
Statutes, section 200.02, subdivision 24, outside the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul;
then to Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
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A state house district must not be divided in the formation of a senate
district.
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A district or plan must not be drawn with the intent to favor
or disfavor a political party or candidate. Incumbent addresses must not be considered when
drawing districts. The incumbent report required by section 4 must not be used in any manner
during the process of drawing a district or plan.
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(a) The congressional districts must be as nearly equal
in population as is practicable.
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(b) Legislative districts must be substantially equal in population. The population of a
legislative district must not deviate from the ideal by more than one percent, plus or minus.
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Districts must be composed of
convenient, contiguous territory structured into compact units. Contiguity by water is
sufficient if the water does not pose a serious obstacle to travel within the district. Districts
with areas that touch only at a point are not contiguous.
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A federally recognized American Indian
reservation must not be divided into more than one district except as necessary to meet
constitutional requirements. When a federally recognized American Indian reservation must
be divided into more than one district, it must be divided into as few districts as possible.
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To the extent possible, counties, cities, and
townships must not be divided. When a county, city, or township must be divided into more
than one district, it must be divided into as few districts as possible.
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Districts must not be drawn with
the purpose or effect of dispersing or concentrating Black people, Indigenous people, People
of Color, or members of a language minority group and must comply with the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of
1965, as amended.
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Districts must attempt to preserve identifiable
communities of interest. A community of interest may include an ethnic or language group
or any group with shared experiences and concerns, including but not limited to geographic,
governmental, regional, social, cultural, historic, socioeconomic, occupational, trade, or
transportation interests. Communities of interest do not include relationships with political
parties, incumbents, or political candidates.
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Districts must attempt to preserve the cores of prior
districts to the extent possible.
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Where it is not possible to fully comply with the
principles contained in subdivisions 2 to 11, a redistricting plan must give priority to those
principles in the order in which they are listed in this section, except to the extent that doing
so would violate federal or state law.
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A redistricting plan must not be considered for adoption by the house of representatives
or senate until the house of representatives or senate committee with jurisdiction over
redistricting evaluates the plan based on the following measures:
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(1) how well the plans preserved communities, including those communities of interest
identified at public hearings regardless of whether those communities are recognized on
the map;
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(2) the overall compactness measures of the districts and whether the total compactness
scores are consistent across districts;
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(3) whether the statewide proportion of districts whose voters favor each political party
corresponds closely to the statewide preferences of the voters of Minnesota, based on
statewide state and federal partisan general election results during the last ten years;
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(4) whether incumbent competition disproportionately burdens either major political
party or incumbents that are Black, Indigenous, Persons of Color, or female; and
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(5) how well the plans comply with the principles established in section 2.
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(a) The geographic areas and population counts used in maps,
tables, and legal descriptions of legislative and congressional districts considered by the
legislature must be those used by the Geographic Information Services (GIS) Office of the
Legislative Coordinating Commission. The population counts shall be the block population
counts provided to the state under Public Law 94-171 after each decennial census, subject
to correction of any errors acknowledged by the United States Census Bureau.
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(b) Nothing in this subdivision prohibits the use of additional data, as determined by the
legislature.
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(c) The database that stores the information described in paragraph (a) must be made
available on the GIS Office website.
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