By Constitution Staff

On April 21, the two chambers of the Oklahoma Legislature unveiled their respective legislative redistricting plans. By law, the Legislature must redraw its legislative district boundaries to reflect changes in population every ten years. The two branches of the Legislature collaborated December to March to hold 22 town hall meetings – 18 in person and four virtual – to solicit input from the public. Under the Oklahoma Constitution, 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.

The plans are based on Oklahoma’s population per the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015-2019 American Community Survey, which set the statewide population at more than 3.9 million people.

The plan for each chamber must be approved by the chambers redistricting committee, the redistricting bill would then go to the full chamber for consideration. If approved by the full chamber, the redistricting bill would go to the other chamber for consideration. If redistricting bills from the Senate and House pass from both chambers, the bills would then go to the governor for signature or veto.

Congressional redistricting has no deadline. The Legislature plans to reconvene in a special session in the fall to complete congressional redistricting and make any necessary adjustments to legislative districts upon the release of final Census data, which was delayed by the federal government until September 30 due to the pandemic.

Oklahoma House Plan

The House redistricting plan: The ideal population for each of the 101 House districts is 38,939. All 101 House districts were redrawn to be within the 5% (+/-2.5%) population deviation standard set by the House Redistricting Committee.

As required by law, all districts also were drawn to be contiguous, and the overall geographic size of districts was a consideration. Forty-seven districts grew in geographic size; 53 shrank. Only House district, House District 25 in Pontotoc County, did not change.

The largest district is still House District 61 in the Panhandle and northwest Oklahoma, which grew from 7,981 square miles to 8,296 square miles. The smallest district is House District 93 in south Oklahoma City, which covers 6.21 square miles.

Where possible, consideration was given to keeping small towns whole by following municipal boundaries. Consideration also was given to organizing districts in regard to rural, urban and suburban areas. In addition, where possible, the plan takes into consideration school district boundaries and uses main roads, rivers, highways and other physical features for district boundaries.

A map of the proposed House districts can be found in PDF and interactive form at:

https://www.okhouse.gov/Publications/PropDistMaps.aspx

Oklahoma Senate Plan

The new population number for Senate districts will be 81,935; the population number of the 2010 Senate districts was 78,153. The largest district is District 27 with a perimeter of 765.21 miles. The smallest district is District 30 with a perimeter is 23.2 miles. The Senate Select Committee on Redistricting adopted guidelines that no individual boundary would deviate more than 5 percent; the new district maps have a deviation of 3.84 percent. District 48 is 1.97 percent over, while District 23 is 1.87 percent below.

The Senate District 18 designation will be relocated from eastern Oklahoma to the Oklahoma City metropolitan area to accommodate rapid population growth in the Oklahoma City suburbs.

The new maps have more whole counties within Senate districts. Fifty-four counties are wholly located within Senate districts under the new maps; the 2010 maps had 51 counties whole.

The new Senate district maps and related materials, all comments submitted by the public, as well as archived video of all redistricting town hall meetings and training sessions can be found on the Senate website at:

www.oksenate.gov/redistricting