HR 11: Independent redistricting commission; provide for creation and establishment - CA

Currently, the Georgia General Assembly draws its own legislative districts and the state's congressional districts after each federal census, a process critics call redistricting. This resolution proposes a constitutional amendment that would instead create a 15-member Independent Redistricting Commission to draw those maps. Commissioners would be screened for conflicts of interest, banned from being recent politicians, lobbyists, or party officials, and selected through a mix of random lottery and peer selection from pools of Democratic-affiliated, Republican-affiliated, and unaffiliated applicants. The commission would follow specific mapmaking rules written into the Constitution, including population equality, protection of minority voting power, respect for communities of interest, and a ban on maps that favor any party or incumbent. The Georgia Supreme Court would review adopted maps. The amendment also limits the legislature's ability to change the number of House and Senate seats except around census years. If passed by the General Assembly, the amendment would go to Georgia voters for ratification or rejection.

• Creates a 15-member Independent Redistricting Commission in the Georgia Constitution to draw state legislative and congressional district maps instead of the General Assembly.
• Sets detailed qualification rules disqualifying recent candidates, elected officials, party officers, campaign staff, lobbyists, and their close relatives from serving as commissioners.
• Establishes a selection process combining random lottery from a pool of applicants with party-leader strikes and peer selection by the initial nine commissioners.
• Requires the commission to hold at least ten public hearings before releasing maps and six more afterward, and to publish full data behind any proposed map.
• Sets binding redistricting criteria such as population equality within 10 percent, protection for minority voters, community-of-interest preservation, and a ban on maps favoring any party or incumbent.
• Gives the Georgia Supreme Court authority to review and either affirm or send back commission-adopted maps, and creates a trust fund to pay for commission operations and commissioner salaries.

Georgia voters generally, since the amendment must be ratified statewide; current and former elected officials, party officials, lobbyists, and campaign staff, who would be barred from serving on the commission; the Secretary of State's office, which runs the selection process; and the Georgia Supreme Court, which gains new map-review duties.

If ratified, mapmaking power would shift from elected legislators to a commission of randomly selected citizens bound by specific fairness rules, changing who controls the boundaries that determine which voters share a legislative or congressional district and potentially affecting election competitiveness across the state.

• Section 1 adds a new Article II, Section IV creating the commission, its membership rules, and disqualifications for recent politicians, party officials, lobbyists, and their relatives (Paragraph II).
• Paragraph III gives the commission the sole power to draw maps for the state Senate, state House, and U.S. House seats from Georgia, requiring a nine-member supermajority including representation from each partisan pool to act.
• Paragraph IV sets binding redistricting criteria including population equality within 10 percent, minority voting protections, community-of-interest preservation, and a ban on maps favoring any party, candidate, or incumbent.
• Paragraph V requires the commission to adopt maps by October 1 of census years, sets a tie-breaking ranked-choice process if consensus fails, and gives the Supreme Court 30 days to affirm or remand each plan.
• Paragraph VI creates an Independent Redistricting Commission Trust Fund, funded partly by a share of the Secretary of State's budget, to pay commissioner salaries and operating costs.
• Section 2 amends Article III to let the General Assembly set the number of House and Senate members only by general law passed before April 1 of a census year, and removes the legislature's current apportionment authority.
• Section 3 sends the amendment to voters with a ballot question asking whether to create an independent citizens' redistricting commission.

1. 2026-06-20House Second Readers (House)
2. 2026-06-18House First Readers (House)
3. 2026-06-17House Hopper (House)

• Gabriel Sanchez (D, HD-042)Primary sponsor
• Mekyah McQueen (D, HD-061)
• Stacey Evans (D, HD-057)
• Carolyn Hugley (D, HD-141)
• Spencer Frye (D, HD-122)
• Anne Westbrook (D, HD-163)

• redistricting
• voting and elections
• constitutional amendment
• gerrymandering
• state legislature