LAB Commentary

The reapportionment process is guided by Title 17, Chapter 34A of the Vermont Statutes Annotated. On March 30, 2022, the General Assembly passed H.722 (2021) reapportioning the House of Representatives and the Senate. H.722 was signed by the Governor on April 6, 2022, and enacted as 2022 Acts and Resolves No. 89. The resources on this page reflect the work of the Legislative Apportionment Board through January 2022. Please click here for additional information regarding current House and Senate districts.

Legislative Apportionment Board Sends House Preliminary Map to Local Boards of Civil Authority for Feedback

October 18, 2021

On Friday, October 15^th the Vermont Legislative Apportionment Board (LAB) voted 4-3 in favor of approving a draft map proposal for Vermont House legislative districts to send to local Boards of Civil Authority (BCAs) for feedback on the proposed district subdivisions. The draft map contains 150 single member districts, which is a change from the current map utilizing both single and multi-member districts.

The LAB convenes, as per state statute and the Vermont Constitution, every 10 years following the release of U.S. Census data, to configure districts for the Vermont Senate and House of Representatives with a goal of equal representation for all Vermonters.

As per statute, the LAB must provide a draft proposal to the BCAs of towns impacted by the House map redistricting. The BCAs may submit their feedback on the proposal to the LAB for consideration. That notification has gone to all cities and towns by email today. BCA feedback is due by November 15^th.

More information on the proposed House district map, including resources for BCAs, can be found on the Secretary of State’s website at https://sos.vermont.gov/vsara/learn/general-assembly/legislative-apportionment/2021-2022/.

The LAB must provide its final recommendation of one House and one Senate map to the Legislature by November 29, 2021 for consideration.

Members of the public interested in providing their feedback on the House district proposal are encouraged to do so at the meeting of their local BCA, or to the LAB directly either online or during future meetings, which are open to the public under Vermont’s Open Meeting Law.

- Vermont Legislative Apportionment Board

Growing, Shifting Vermont Population May Shake Up ’22 Election Map

June 21, 2021

The 2020 Census numbers for Vermont indicate that our little state grew by about 20,000 people over the past decade, or +2.8%. We also know that within Vermont our overall population has been migrating toward the northwest region of the state (Chittenden, Franklin and Lamoille Counties), and away from the south and east. Moreover, there is a legislative mandate to break up the six-member Chittenden senate district (currently Chittenden County minus Colchester and Huntington/Buels Gore). All of these factors point to a legislative district map in 2022 that could look very different from the ones Vermonters have used, not just since 2012, but for many decades past.

The reason for redrawing district maps every 10 years is a simple but compelling one. In order to ensure that representation in the House and Senate is roughly equal – reflecting the principle of one person one vote – as local populations grow and shrink district lines must move in such a way that each district contains about the same number of people. In 2022, the ideal number of Vermonters in a single-member House district, for example, will be just under 4,300. Too many more than that, and the residents of that district are under-represented. Too few, and they are over-represented. In either case, the district would be considered unconstitutional.

Compounding these demographic challenges is the fact that the final, street-level population counts from the 2020 Census – necessary for redrawing roughly equally populated legislative districts that satisfy these constitutional requirements – won’t be available until September 2021. We know how many Vermonters there are (643,000), but we can only estimate at this point where they are. Until we have that data, the Legislative Apportionment Board can’t complete new house and senate district maps for recommendation to the legislature. The legislature, which has final say over what the maps look like, will have to make changes (if any) and a decision in just a few short months of the 2022 legislative session that runs from January to mid-May.

Now, consider that candidates for house and senate races will need to file paperwork declaring their candidacies sometime in the second half of May, 2022. How they can do this if the district they want to file to run in hasn’t been determined is a question we all hope to avoid. So, get ready for a fast and intense reapportionment ride!

Between now and September, the Legislative Apportionment Board is collecting as much data and public input as it can in order to be able to make good decisions very quickly about how to fairly deal with our new demographic realities. Some questions we have for the public at large include:

• What is more important to you: making sure the populations in each district are as close to equal as possible, or allowing larger (within constitutional guidelines) differences in populations to maintain district lines closer to the status quo?
• How important is it to you that your legislative district lines conform to town boundary lines?
• How important is it to you that your legislative district lines conform to county boundary lines?
• Do you prefer single member house districts (one representative per a House district of around 4,300?) or two member districts (two representatives in a single house district of around 8,600 people)?
• Do you prefer single member senate districts (one senator per senate district of around 21,500 people), or multi-member senate districts (two or three senators in a single district of around 43,000 or 64,500 people)?

You can let the Legislative Apportionment Board know your views on these questions and on other factors you wish us to consider as we draw up proposed legislative district lines by emailing Board members at their addresses posted on the Board’s website, participating in our monthly on-line meetings, or mailing a letter to us c/o the Secretary of State’s office (Legislative Apportionment Board, 128 State Street, Montpelier, VT 05633-1101).

This is a critical exercise in our representative democracy. It happens only every 10 years – don’t miss out on it!

- Vermont Legislative Apportionment Board

Legislative Apportionment in Vermont

April 1, 2021

It’s that time of the decade again!

The U.S. Constitution requires a census every 10 years, and this up-to-date population count is used to ensure that our elected representatives in the legislature are equitably apportioned across the state. (Because Vermont has a single member of the U.S. House of Representatives, the is no decennial reapportionment there.) 

Vermont law mandates reapportionment of our House and Senate districts "… to achieve substantially equal weighting of the votes of all voters in the choice of legislators." “Equal weighting” means that all legislative districts that have the same number of members should have substantially the same number of residents. So, all single-member House districts should have around 4,200 people, double that for a two-member district. There is a similar requirement for Senate districts.

During the intervening decade from one Census to the next, population shifts occur, more pronounced in some areas of the state than in others. Using the 2020 Census figures for Vermont, the job of developing new statewide legislative districting plans that account for these population shifts initially falls to the Legislative Apportionment Board, a tripartisan group of seven citizens. The Board then makes its recommendations to the legislature, which will have the final say on the new map before it goes into effect for the 2022 election cycle. Our work is being challenged by the delayed release of the final U.S. Census figures. 

Reapportionment in Vermont has worked this way since the mid-1960s. Prior to then, Vermont’s House and Senate districts were dramatically different—in fact, until 1836 the state had only a House of Representatives (no Senate) to which each town sent one representative. The inequities of this arrangement were not lost on the larger towns, and in 1836 Vermont’s 30-member Senate was created—with county-based districts and representation more directly connected to population-- a partial solution. 

By 1960, the 246-member House was perhaps the most disparately apportioned legislative body in the nation. For example, the smallest town at the time—Stratton—had 38 residents, while the largest—Burlington—had 35,351, yet they each had one representative in the House! A majority of the House members represented towns that together accounted for just 11.8% of the state’s population.

The transition to the population-based house and senate districts we have today is a direct result of landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions that for the first-time extended equal-protection principles from the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to state legislative districts. These decisions (and decisions of the federal trial court in Vermont) led directly to the 1965 reapportionment of Vermont’s House and Senate districts, and the establishment of the Legislative Apportionment Board.

While reapportionment largely focuses on population, Vermont law contemplates districts that conform to existing municipal and county boundary lines. There are additional statutory requirements as well, such as geographic compactness and contiguity. Taken together, there are many factors to balance.

We want this to be the beginning of a continuing statewide dialogue, and will follow up with posts on specific issues and topics. You can learn more about the Board and the apportionment process on the Board’s website, and find meeting schedules and Zoom links to watch our meetings in real time or in recorded version. You can contribute comments and share ideas during meetings, or by email to members of the Board.

- Vermont Legislative Apportionment Board