Section 1.  Districting principles.  Establishes redistricting principles that the legislature will use for future redistricting.

Subdivision 1.  Applicability; constitutional duty of legislature.  Provides that the redistricting principles of this section apply both to legislative and congressional districts.  The legislature must draw the districts and may not delegate this authority to a commission or similar entity.

Subdivisions 2-8 establish the following redistricting principles: nesting; equal population; contiguity and compactness; numbering; minority representation; minor civil divisions; and preserving communities of interest.

Subdivision 9.  Data to be used.  The geographical areas and populations counts that are used must be from the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) office of the Legislative Coordinating Commission. Other data may be used as determined by the legislature.

Subdivision 10.  Consideration of plans.  The legislature is prohibited from considering a plan for adoption until a block equivalency file showing the district to which each census block has been assigned has been filed with the GIS director.

Subdivision 11.  Priority of principles.  When it is not possible to comply with all principles in subdivisions 2 – 8, the plan must give priority to those principles in the order in which they are listed.

This section is effective the day following final enactment.

ACS/syl