[EL] Shrinking legislatures

Thu May 16 12:35:54 PDT 2019

The New York State Senate increased its size in 2002 and 2012 using an obscure 1894 state constitutional provision that permitted the Senate to change size based on district population characteristics of that decade (when New York City was growing and rural counties were concerned that the city might get “too much” representation).
In 2012, the Senate size went from 62 to 63 after the Senate came to terms with reallocating prisoners to their homes of record before incarceration. The Democratic Senate and Assembly approved the prisoner reallocation law in 2010. After the Senate went back under GOP control in 2011, and realizing that the Senate had to implement the 2010 law, the Senate found a way to add a district to its size to help compensate for the loss of rural prison populations. A 2014 state constitutional amendment creating an advisory redistricting commission did not address either the Senate size or prisoner reallocation.
Jeff Wice (I was counsel to the Senate Democratic Conference during the period mentioned above)
via Newton Mail [https://cloudmagic.com/k/d/mailapp?ct=dx&cv=10.0.18&pv=10.14.4&source=email_footer_2]
On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 3:18 PM, Rob Richie <rr at fairvote.org> wrote:
I'll add that the logical change would be in the other direction. That is, the US population keeps growing, and legislative chambers could grow to keep a certain balance. The number of seats in the US House changed every decade up until 1910, when it illogically stopped; the average number of constituents has tripled in the intervening years, and Montana has one House ember for ore than a million people. California state senate districts are now larger than congressional districts, and Los Angeles County Supervisor district bigger still.
So my question is what might be some examples in he last 50 years where a state legislature has increased its number of representatives? I know New York City Council did so about three decades ago, but it seems quite rare.

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 3:12 PM Reed Witherby < rwitherby at smithduggan.com [rwitherby at smithduggan.com] > wrote:
Massachusetts reduced the size of its House of Representatives from 240 to 160 in 1979.

Reed Witherby

Smith Duggan Buell & Rufo LLP

617.216.6930

From: Law-election < law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] > on behalf of David Segal < davidadamsegal at gmail.com [davidadamsegal at gmail.com] >
Date: Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 2:57 PM
To: David O'Brien < dobrien at fairvote.org [dobrien at fairvote.org] >
Cc: " law-election at uci.edu [law-election at uci.edu] " < law-election at uci.edu [law-election at uci.edu] >
Subject: Re: [EL] Shrinking legislatures

We went from 100 -> 75 in the RI House and 50 -> 38 in the Senate in 2002. Constitutional amendment, put on the ballot by the legislature.

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 2:55 PM David O'Brien < dobrien at fairvote.org [dobrien at fairvote.org] > wrote:

Nebraska shrunk the size of its legislature when it voted to switch to a unicameral system in 1934. Prior to that referendum, it had a Senate with 33 members and a House of Representatives with 100 members. Today it only has a 49-member Senate.

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 2:42 PM Edelman, Paul < paul.edelman at law.vanderbilt.edu [paul.edelman at law.vanderbilt.edu] > wrote:

I am in search of examples of legislative bodies that have shrunk, either of their own volition or by order of some superior entity. They seem to be as uncommon as shrinking university administrations. Does anyone have any examples? Thanks in advance.

Paul

Paul H. Edelman

Professor of Mathematics and Law

Vanderbilt University

paul.edelman at vanderbilt.edu [paul.edelman at vanderbilt.edu]

615-322-0990

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