Court Opinion

ID: 9628075
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:06:48.844635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:57.342830
License: Public Domain

PETERSON, J.,
specially concurring.
I concur without reservation in the majority opinion, with this explanation. As pointed out on page 671 of the opinion, section 6 of HB 2001, as originally proposed and as passed in the House and Senate, matched one of the fifteen holdover senators to each new district electing a senator in 1984. This probably was intended to guarantee that every person in those districts would be represented by a senator from the second Monday in January, 1983, and continuing to the second Monday in January, 1985. Thus, half of the new senate districts would be represented by a senator elected at the 1982 general election; the remaining districts would be represented by the designated senators until January, 1985. But section 6 was deleted in conference committee and is not a part of chapter 261.
*688The parties appear to agree that it is impossible to avoid “pockets” of voters who will not vote in any senate race for six years, from 1978 to 1984.1 Footnote 16 of the majority opinion refers to voters “who will miss a quadrennial senate election by virtue of the reapportionment” and concludes:
“* * * [UJnlike the inhabitants of other precincts that will not vote for a senator between 1978 and 1984, the inhabitants of District 6 are not incorporated in any electoral district for the representation of which an identifiable senator can be said to be ‘apportioned’ within the meaning of § 6(1).”
The parties also appear to agree that as to each of the other new 14 senate districts in which elections will be held in 1984, a presently-serving senator whose term expires in 1985 was, at the time of election in 1981, resident in what is now the new district. Although it does not appear from the face of chapter 261 that any senator has been “assigned” to any of the. new districts, the parties appear to agree that as to all districts except District 6, a senator has, in a sense, been “apportioned” to the district. No issue has been raised as to the “apportionment” of these 14 districts. District 6 is the only district in Oregon which, between January, 1983, and January, 1985, will have neither a senator elected from the district nor a senator who, at the time of election, resided within the borders of the new district. The majority opinion requires that this be corrected, with the result that each of the fifteen districts will have (quoting from footnote 16), “an identifiable senator.”

 For example, the brief of petitioners Ivancie, et al, states:
“Petitioners concede that any reapportionment, due to the need to adjust district boundaries, may result in some people having no Senate representation'for two years. 4c 4c
It is probably more correct to say that, due to shifting populations, it is impossible to avoid, as to some voters, a six-year period between senate elections.