District-drawing commission finalizes its criteria

Montana’s Districting and Apportionment Commission voted on July 20 to finalize the criteria it will use to draw Montana’s new U.S. House and state legislative districts using data from the 2020 census.

The commission previously approved criteria specific to U.S. House districts at a meeting earlier this month, but ran out of time to hash out criteria for state legislative districts.

That language regarding congressional criteria specified that U.S. House districts “must be as equal in population as is practicable,” and also committed the commission to drawing districts that are compact, contiguous and in compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act, which articulates standards intended to ensure that minority groups like Native Americans are fairly represented in the state’s politics.