State Senator Districts

V - State senators elected one for each county,

When a state has bicameral legislative bodies the members of one should be elected based on population, generally the House. The members of the other, generally the Senate, elected one for each county or other governing unit. This would be following the pattern in the U S Constitution for Congress. Each state would need to analyze their own situations and address their needs. Fourteenth Amendment, equal protection under the law. What about equal protection for citizens of each county. Shouldn’t they have someone who speaks for them as an elected representative from their county? Currently, in Idaho, twenty of the 44 counties have no representatives in the state legislature. Those counties have a 2010 Census population of around 155,000 people. We could call for equal protection for each County as the Federal government does where each state has equal protection in the Senate. Another example could be the disparity in the United States House of Representatives between Wyoming and Delaware or New York or Minnesota or Idaho. How many people does the Representative from those states represent? There is precedent among the states for having separate senatorial districts with their boundaries different than for their legislative districts. The question might be asked, what is "Equal Protection"? Have we gone too far with "one man, one vote" to over represent the large population and underrepresent the smaller populations? See Representation numbers

In Idaho we have 44 counties. We currently have 35 Legislative Districts so adjustments need to be made. Two of the counties have populations of just over and under 1,000. The largest county by population has almost half a million residents. The reapportionment (redistricting) committee may be able to accomplish this change by creating separate Senate Districts. The situation in a current Idaho legislative district includes five whole counties and a part of one other county. Those counties include four of the five counties along the eastern border of the state and stretch to include three of the six counties along the southern border. It is a 400 mile drive from one end of that district to the other side. At least one county has no representatives within 200 miles. There are thirteen legislative districts within the borders of the two counties with the largest population numbers. With the new census and redistricting there will probably be fourteen districts. That amounts to 26, or 28, House seats for two counties. Each legislative district has around 42,000 population from the 2010 Census numbers. 2020 Census numbers show 52,546 per district

We ask, can we say we have provided equal protection under the law when a voter in one county has 18 members of the house and 9 senators representing them and voters in 20 counties have none? "One man, one vote" does not provide equal protection by representation for rural voters under the law. Under the 1st and 14th Amendments many people are denied representation.

Idaho Senate District Proposals

Category: State