LB233<\/a>, introduced by Omaha Sen. Bob Krist, would reduce the number to 45.<\/p>\nUnder Sullivan\u2019s proposal, a 50th legislative district would be created and the governor would appoint a representative to serve until the November 2012 general election.<\/p>\n
Sullivan said Nebraska\u2019s population is continually shifting east, placing a burden on rural senators whose districts are growing geographically. Creating a new district would give the committee greater flexibility in drawing new district lines based on the 2010 census, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRural representation should not fall victim to shifting demographics,\u201d Sullivan said, adding that representing a large rural district requires a major time commitment to stay connected to constituents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spend a great deal of time traveling the district,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cA lot of that, unfortunately, is windshield time. Constituents aren\u2019t served when I\u2019m traveling from town to town.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under Krist\u2019s proposal, 45 new districts would be drawn, with representatives of the newly created odd-numbered districts elected in 2012 and even-numbered districts in 2014.<\/p>\n
Nine senators will be barred from running for re-election in 2012 due to term limits, Krist said, making it an ideal time to implement change.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a unique historic point in time in the state of Nebraska,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Reducing the number of districts would save money, increase diversity within districts and better balance the state\u2019s rural and urban divide, Krist said. Moving to 45 districts would mean an increase of less than 5,000 constituents per senator, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA small increase would not be overly burdensome,\u201d Krist said, adding that improvements in technology would allow senators and constituents to connect even across geographically large districts.<\/p>\n
No testimony was given and the committee took no immediate action on either bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Redistricting Committee heard testimony Feb. 16 on two proposals that would change the number of representatives in Nebraska\u2019s 49-member<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-3396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-redistricting","tag-sen-kate-sullivan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3396"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10500,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3396\/revisions\/10500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}