Fall special session will be needed for redrawing congressional boundaries

Treat, R-Oklahoma City, said lawmakers will have to address the redrawing of legislative and congressional boundaries at different times because officials are waiting on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Lawmakers will not have the data necessary to redraw congressional boundaries until this fall, Treat said.

“The constitution of the state of Oklahoma requires that we get legislative redistricting done before sine die of the session immediately following the completion of the U.S. census,” Treat said.

The same is not true for congressional redistricting.

The census was completed last year even though the state won’t have the numbers until this fall, Treat said.

“We will absolutely have to come into special session to do congressional redistricting because you have to have an exact number of people per district in that,” Treat said. “And then anywhere where the variances are too big from the legislative redistricting that we complete this spring, we can adjust those in that special session.”

Treat’s remarks were in response to a question at his weekly press availability on Thursday.

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