Provides that any plan of apportionment relating to the division of a county, except a county wholly contained within a city, into districts for the purpose of apportionment or reapportionment of members of its local legislative body shall be subject to federal and state constitutional requirements; further provides for standards to be followed for such plan.
STATE OF NEW YORK
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4611--A
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
March 15, 2019
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Introduced by Sens. GAUGHRAN, SKOUFIS -- read twice and ordered printed,
and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Local Government
-- recommitted to the Committee on Local Government in accordance with
Senate Rule 6, sec. 8 -- committee discharged, bill amended, ordered
reprinted as amended and recommitted to said committee
AN ACT to amend the municipal home rule law, in relation to the division
of a county into districts for the apportionment of members of its
local legislative body
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision 4 of section 34 of the municipal home rule law
2 is renumbered subdivision 5 and a new subdivision 4 is added to read as
3 follows:
4 4. Any plan of apportionment adopted pursuant to a county charter or
5 charter law relating to the division of any county, except a county
6 wholly contained within a city, into districts for the purpose of the
7 apportionment or reapportionment of members of its local legislative
8 body shall be subject to federal and state constitutional requirements
9 and shall comply with the following standards, which shall have priority
10 in the order set forth in this subdivision, to the extent applicable:
11 a. The plan shall provide substantially equal weight for all of the
12 residents of that county in the allocation of representation in the
13 local legislative body.
14 b. In such plan, no town except a town having more than one hundred
15 ten percent of a full ratio for each representative, shall be divided in
16 the formation or representation areas. Adjacent representation areas in
17 the same town or city shall not contain a greater excess in population
18 than five percent of a full ratio for each representative.
19 c. The plan shall provide substantially fair and effective represen-
20 tation for the people of the county as organized in political parties.
21 d. Representation areas shall be of convenient and contiguous territo-
22 ry in as compact form as practicable.
23 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD03710-05-0
