Acknowledgments

This decennial update of NCSL’s comprehensive treatise on redistricting law began at the December 1997 meeting of the Redistricting Task Force in Washington, D.C., with the solicitation of a volunteer from each state to write summary of each case from that state since the 1990 census and solicitation of an author who would use the summaries to update the text of each of the chapters from Reapportionment Law: the 1990s. The 50 state contacts completed their work in May 1998. Their names may be found in the NCSL publication, Redistricting Case Summaries from the 1990s (the “blue book”).

A prepublication draft of the case summaries was provided to the 19 authors who wrote this treatise (the “red book”). A first draft of each chapter was prepared for review by the authors at the NCSL Annual Meeting in Las Vegas in July 1998. Subsequent drafts were reviewed and discussed during conference calls among the authors in October and November 1998, following which the text was made available on the task force web page for review by all task force members. A draft of the entire book was presented to the full Redistricting Task Force in December 1998. The U.S. Justice Department reviewed the final draft and provided suggestions for edits.

Chapter 2, “The Census,” was updated by Mary Spain, Senior Attorney, Division of Legislative Services, Virginia; Joyce Honaker, Committee Staff Administrator, Legislative Research Commission, Kentucky; and Nasrin Rahman, Manager, Redistricting, Maryland Office of Planning. Chapter 3, “Equal Population,” was updated by Ellen Tewes, Deputy Legislative Attorney, Office of Legal Services, Tennessee; and Paige Seals, Legislative Attorney, Office of Legal Services, Tennessee. Chapter 4, “Racial and Ethnic Discrimination,” was updated by Rebecca C. Lennahan, Deputy Director, Legislative Legal Services, Colorado; Glenn Koepp, Assistant Secretary of the Senate, Louisiana; Laura Jones, Assistant Legislative Counsel, Legislative Services Committee, Georgia; Gerry F. Cohen, Director of Bill Drafting, Legislative Services Office, North Carolina; Jeffrey M. Wice, Assistant Counsel to the Speaker, New York State Assembly; Wayne Arden, Esq., Senate Minority Staff, New York; and Paula Benson, Senior Staff Counsel, Senate Judiciary Committee, South Carolina. Chapter 5, “Multimember Districts,” was updated by Scott G. Wasserman, Chief Deputy Legislative Counsel, Nevada. Chapter 6, “Partisan Gerrymandering,” was updated by Mary Torrence, Assistant Revisor of Statutes, Kansas; and Mary Galligan, Principal Analyst, Legislative Research Department, Kansas. Chapter 7, “Federalism in Redistricting,” was written by Peter S. Wattson, Senate Counsel, Minnesota. Tables and appendices were provided by Tim Storey, NCSL staff; Marshall L. Turner, Chief, Census Redistricting Data Office, Census Bureau; Wayne Arden, Esq., Senate Minority Staff, New York; Greg Jernigan, Legal Counsel to the President, Arizona Senate; Glenn Koepp, Assistant Secretary of the Senate, Louisiana; and Gerry F. Cohen, Director of Bill Drafting, Legislative Services Office, North Carolina.

Patricia Hemming and Daniel Becker in the Office of Senate Counsel & Research and Peggie Smith, Leann Stelzer, and Lisa Houlihan at NCSL’s Denver office compiled, formatted and edited the entire document.

Tim Storey at NCSL contributed coordination and editorial supervision for the project, and Peter Wattson provided editorial supervision for both the summaries and this book. Peter deserves considerable credit for the overall coordination of this publication. The NCSL Redistricting Task Force owes a great debt of gratitude to Peter Wattson for his time and leadership on this project.

Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the respective authors.

 Go to NCSL Redistricting home page

This page is maintained by the Redistricting Task Force for the National Conference of State Legislatures

Update:  10/31/03 (psw)

Comments: peter.wattson@senate.leg.state.mn.us