COUNTY REAPPORTIONMENT - S.B. 812: FLOOR ANALYSIS

Senate Bill 812 (as reported without amendment)

Sponsor: Senator Philip E. Hoffman

Committee: Reapportionment


CONTENT


The bill would amend Public Act 261 of 1966, which provides for the apportionment of county boards of commissioners, to revise the guidelines that a county apportionment commission must use in apportioning the county into commission districts.


Currently, the Act requires that all districts be as nearly of equal population as is practicable. The bill would require, instead, that all districts have a population not less than 94.05% or more than 105.95% of the ideal district size, unless the U.S. Supreme Court established a different range of allowable population divergence for county commissioner districts.


Commissioner district boundaries would have to be determined by use of population data from the U.S. Census Bureau identical to those from the actual enumeration conducted by the Census Bureau for the apportionment of the Representatives of the U.S. House of Representatives in the U.S. decennial census. District boundaries could not be determined by use of Census Bureau population counts derived from any other means, including statistical sampling to add or subtract population by inference.


The bill specifies that districts could not violate Section 2 of Title I of the Federal Voting Rights Act, which provides that no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure may be imposed or applied by any state or political subdivision in a manner that results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any U.S. citizen to vote on account of race or color or membership in a language minority group (42 USC 1973).


MCL 46.404 & 46.408 - Legislative Analyst: S. Lowe


FISCAL IMPACT


The bill would have an indeterminate fiscal impact on county government. Potential costs related to a special census, if a future United State decennial census were determined to be inadequate, would depend on the scope of the special census.


Date Completed: 10-26-99 - Fiscal Analyst: B. BowermanFloor\sb812 - Bill Analysis @ http://www.state.mi.us/sfa

This analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent.