The proposal to establish an independent Citizens' Redistricting Advisory Commission was approved by the city council Wednesday night after passing through committee last week.
Ordinance 20-30 will create a nine-person commission made up of three Republicans, three Democrats, and three Independents who will make recommendations in drawing the maps for local legislative districts.
"We chose the dividing lines of the six districts of the City of Bloomington and we shouldn't be choosing our voters, they should be choosing their representatives," council president Steve Volan said.
Volan said the commission follows a similar proposal made by the League of Women Voters at the state-level to end gerrymandering.
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The selection process for the commission will be headed by the three at-large council members, since they don't belong to a specific district that the maps are based on.
18 candidates will be evenly chosen by at-large members by picking six Republicans, six Democrats, and six Independents. Then, three from each party will be chosen at random to be the commissioners.
"One from each pool must be an IU student because they represent well over 40%, if not 50%, of the population of the city," Volan said.
Any voting city resident is eligible to serve on the commission except for the following:
- City of Bloomington public office holders, or candidates for public office
- Employees of an elected official
- Employees of the City of Bloomington
- Officers of any county-level political party in Monroe County
- Contributors of $2,000 or more to any political candidate (within the past five years)
- Registered with the Indiana Lobby Registration Commission
- Immediate family members of any of these individuals
"It's a pretty stringent set of criteria, but this is the befitting nature of the job," Volan said.
At-large council member Susan Sandberg said the intent is to have a non-partisan commission. And as an extra measure to make it unbiased, the commission will be chaired by one of the Independent members.
“One of the most important factors is we need individuals on this committee that will be completely objective in drawing the districts that relates to the populations, that relates to obviously coordination with the county commissioners on how the precincts are drawn," Sandberg said.
The commission will begin meeting in 2021 when Monroe County's precincts are drawn by the county commissioners.
"While we don't have any direct say over how the commissioners draw precincts, we should have our appointed commission giving input on our behalf during the process," Volan said.
Volan said the commission will operate every two years after a national census when the district lines are redrawn, and then dissolve until the next decade.
"It's time the state redistricted. If we [Bloomington] can lead the way and show them how it's done and alter it to fit local needs, then there should be no problem doing it up at the state-level," Volan said.
