I 
111TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 6250 
To establish the terms and conditions States must follow in carrying out 
Congressional redistricting. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 29, 2010 
Mr. NUNES introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee 
on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To establish the terms and conditions States must follow 
in carrying out Congressional redistricting. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; FINDING OF CONSTITUTIONAL 
AUTHORITY. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘Congressional Redistricting Formula Act’’. 
(b) FINDING.—Congress finds that it has the author-
ity to establish the terms and conditions States must fol-
low in carrying out congressional redistricting after an ap-
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portionment of Members of the House of Representatives 
because— 
(1) the authority granted to Congress under ar-
ticle I, section 4 of the Constitution of the United 
States gives Congress the power to enact laws gov-
erning the time, place, and manner of elections for 
Members of the House of Representatives; and 
(2) the authority granted to Congress under 
section 5 of the 14th amendment to the Constitution 
gives Congress the power to enact laws to enforce 
section 2 of such amendment, which requires Rep-
resentatives to be apportioned among the several 
States according to their number. 
SEC. 2. STANDARDS FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF CONGRES-
SIONAL DISTRICTS. 
(a) REQUIRING REDISTRICTING TO FOLLOW STAND-
ARDS.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other 
provision of law, any Congressional redistricting con-
ducted by a State after an apportionment of Rep-
resentatives shall be conducted in accordance with a 
plan— 
(A) which meets the standards described in 
subsection (b); and 
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(B) is enacted in accordance with the pub-
lic notice requirements of subsection (c). 
(2) PRIORITY IN CASE OF CONFLICT.—To the 
extent that it is inconsistent for a State to apply 
each of the standards described in subsection (b) in 
the case of a Congressional district, the State shall 
give priority to the standards in the order in which 
they are listed in subsection (b). 
(b) STANDARDS DESCRIBED.— 
(1) EQUAL POPULATION.—The number of per-
sons in each Congressional district in a State shall 
be as nearly equal to the number of persons in each 
other district in the State as is practicable. 
(2) BASIS FOR DETERMINING POPULATION.— 
The enumeration made pursuant to section 2 of arti-
cle I of the Constitution shall be the sole basis for 
determining population. 
(3) CONTIGUITY
OF
TERRITORY.—Congres-
sional districts in the State shall be comprised of 
contiguous territory, including adjoining insular ter-
ritory. 
(4) CONSISTENCY WITH VOTING RIGHTS ACT.— 
Congressional districts in the State shall be estab-
lished in conformance with the requirements of the 
Voting Rights Act of 1965. 
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(5) NO DILUTION OF VOTING STRENGTH.—Con-
gressional districts in the State may not be estab-
lished with the major purpose of diluting the voting 
strength of any person, or group, including any po-
litical party, except as necessary to comply with the 
requirements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 
(6) AVOIDING DIVISION OF UNITS OF LOCAL 
GOVERNMENT.— 
(A) IN GENERAL.—Except as necessary to 
comply with the requirements of the Voting 
Rights Act of 1965, the boundaries of Congres-
sional districts in the State shall be drawn so 
as to avoid the unnecessary division of units of 
local government and, to the greatest extent 
possible, shall be drawn in accordance with the 
following specific standards: 
(i) No more than one Congressional 
district shall cross the common boundary 
between any 2 counties, townships, towns, 
villages, cities, or any other units of local 
government. 
(ii) No Congressional district shall 
contain more than 2 fragments of counties, 
townships, towns, villages, cities, or any 
other units of local government. 
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(iii) No county, township, town, vil-
lage, city, or other unit of local government 
shall contain more than 2 Congressional 
district fragments. 
(B) FRAGMENT DEFINED.—For purposes 
of subparagraph (A), the term ‘‘fragment’’ 
means, with respect to a Congressional district, 
county, township, town, village, city, or other 
unit of local government, a portion of the unit 
which does not contain all the population of the 
Congressional district or unit of local govern-
ment (as the case may be). For purposes of this 
specific standard, a unit of local government in-
cludes the area and population entirely sur-
rounded by that unit’s outer boundary, includ-
ing the area and population of any other units 
of local government within that boundary. 
(7) 
PROMOTING
COMPACTNESS
OF
DIS-
TRICTS.— 
(A) IN GENERAL.—Congressional districts 
in a State shall be compact in form, and the 
boundaries of districts shall be drawn so that 
nearby populations are not bypassed in favor of 
more distant populations, in accordance with 
the following criteria: 
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(i) Each district shall contain no less 
than 60 percent of the population con-
tained in that figure drawn around that 
district, bounded by only straight lines, 
with the shortest possible perimeter. 
(ii) The average of the sum of per-
centages calculated under clause (i) for all 
the districts in the State shall not be less 
than 75 percent. 
(iii) Only the population within the 
State in which each district is located shall 
be used in making the calculations de-
scribed in clauses (i) and (ii), except that 
the population of offshore islands may be 
excluded in making these calculations. 
(B) COMPUTATION
OF
PERCENTAGES.— 
For purposes of computing the percentages de-
scribed in subparagraph (A), the total popu-
lations of a census block shall be deemed within 
a Congressional district or figure surrounding 
that Congressional district if the geographic 
center of that block falls within the district or 
the figure drawn around the district. For pur-
poses of the previous sentence, the geographic 
center of a census block shall be defined as the 
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point contained within the boundaries of the 
census block which is normally calculated to 
display a label in that block when generating a 
map. 
(c) PUBLIC NOTICE REQUIREMENTS.— 
(1) SOLICITATION OF COMMENTS PRIOR TO EN-
ACTMENT.—A State may not enact a plan for Con-
gressional redistricting unless, during a period of at 
least 2 weeks preceding the enactment of the plan— 
(A) the State makes available on the Inter-
net and publishes detailed maps showing the 
exact boundaries of each proposed Congres-
sional district and a detailed analysis of the 
population of each proposed Congressional dis-
trict; and 
(B) the State solicits comments and ques-
tions on the plan from the public, under such 
methods as the State may select which provide 
the greatest opportunity practicable for public 
input. 
(2) SHARING OF INFORMATION USED TO DE-
VELOP PLANS.— 
(A) POSTING
OF
INFORMATION.—During 
the period described in subparagraph (B), the 
entity of the government of a State which re-
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sponsible for conducting Congressional redis-
tricting in the State shall make available on the 
Internet (on a continuously updated basis) all 
of the population and demographic data which 
is used by the State to develop Congressional 
redistricting plans. 
(B) PERIOD DESCRIBED.—The period de-
scribed in this subparagraph is the period— 
(i) which begins on the final deadline 
provided under section 22(b) of the Act en-
titled ‘‘An Act to provide for the fifteenth 
and subsequent decennial censuses and to 
provide for an apportionment of Represent-
atives in Congress’’, approved June 18, 
1929 (2 U.S.C. 2a), for the Clerk of the 
House of Representatives to transmit to 
the State the notice of the number of Rep-
resentatives to which the State is entitled 
in the following Congress; and 
(ii) which ends on the date on which 
the State enacts the Congressional redis-
tricting plan. 
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SEC. 3. NO EFFECT ON ELECTIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL 
OFFICE. 
Nothing in this Act may be construed to affect the 
manner in which a State carries out elections for State 
or local office, including the process by which a State es-
tablishes the districts used in such elections. 
SEC. 4. EFFECTIVE DATE. 
This Act shall apply with respect to any congressional 
redistricting which occurs after the regular decennial cen-
sus conducted during 2010. 
Æ 
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