April 14, 2021
By News Director Jared Atha
The Oklahoma House of Representatives will hold a public comment session this week to hear from Oklahomans that submitted a statewide redistricting plan for House districts.
The House received seven map submissions from the public and will host a meeting to hear from interested parties at 3 p.m. Thursday, April 15, in room 206 in the state Capitol.
This process will determine legislative and congressional districts and ultimately who represents them at the state and the U.S. Capitol.
Currently the City of Elk City is split between two house of representative districts. Of the seven submitted map proposals, two still had Elk City split. The other five proposals had Elk City inside House District 55. Each district in the state would represent just under 40,000 Oklahoma residents.
Every 10 years, the Legislature is constitutionally required to redraw Oklahoma’s legislative and congressional district boundaries to reflect population changes following the decennial census.
The House Redistricting Committee in February adopted redistricting rules and guidelines as well as set the parameters for public map submissions. Map submissions were limited to Oklahoma residents only.
Redistricting plans for state legislative districts must be completed by May 28, 2021, the constitutionally mandated conclusion of the first regular legislative session following the end of the census. Congressional redistricting has no deadline, but the Legislature plans to reconvene in a special session to complete its work in time for the 2022 elections. The special session is necessary because Census data is delayed this year until Sept. 30.
The meeting can be live streamed here: https://okhouse.gov/Video/Default.aspx
