Committee passes bill delaying county redistricting to 2031 and requiring public hearings

A House committee on Monday adopted an amendment to House Bill 1342 that delays local county redistricting until after the 2030 cycle and requires county executives to publish proposed county commission district boundaries and hold a public hearing before adopting ordinances to create or revise districts.

Counsel David Dickmeyer told the committee the amendment "pushes the process out ... to the end of, 2030" and recreates the statute so the new language will be effective in January 2031. The amendment retains long-standing rules — districts must be contiguous, reasonably compact and generally not cross precinct lines — while adding a requirement that "the executive shall publish proposed district boundaries and hold a public hearing concerning proposed district boundaries before adopting an ordinance to establish or revise districts."

The change removes earlier language that had required equal proportional population and instead adds public input and population as a factor for executives to consider, Representative Yocom, the bill sponsor, said. "They will have to have a public meeting to discuss their decision making," Yocom said, describing the provision as a way to give residents a chance to comment without mandating fixed population parameters.

Representative Pryor objected to the lack of a firm deadline tied explicitly to election dates, saying, "For now, I'm a no because I want to hear back from the individuals who had concerns." Counsel David Dickmeyer responded that a statute enacted in a prior session already specifies timeframes for local redistricting and ties compliance to salary and would continue to apply under the amendment.

A motion to pass the bill as amended was made and seconded. The committee conducted a roll call; the clerk recorded nine yes votes and one no vote. The chair announced, "the vote is 9 to 1" and declared the bill passed as amended. Representative Matt Pierce, who voted yes, said the measure may need "a little bit of fine tuning on second reading."

The committee congratulated Representative Yocom on getting the bill out of committee and then adjourned. The bill will proceed to the next legislative stage for second reading, where members indicated they may further refine its language.

Voting record as read on the floor: Yes — Representatives Payne, Lawson, (Yoakam recorded in the roll), Kyle Pierce, Prescott, Pressell, Smolts, WESCO, and Matt Pierce. No — Representative Pryor. Excused/absent — Representatives Jackson, Arrington and Colt. (Names and spellings recorded from the transcript roll call.)