Commission structure adjustment (new law)

The Minneapolis School Board was recently restructured by voter referendum from an all at-large board to one composed of six members representing specific zones and three at-large members.

A new law, signed April 1 by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, gives the city permission to appoint two members from the school board to that city’s redistricting commission, in lieu of current commission members appointed by the majority and minority caucuses of the city council.

The school board members would participate in redistricting school board districts in the city, but not city council districts.

The law requires new school board districts, to the extent possible, to hold relatively equivalent distributions of population; retain concentrations of racial or language minority populations; consist of “contiguous compact territory;” and, when possible, feature boundaries that run mostly run east to west, or north to south.

Rep. Jim Davnie (DFL-Mpls) and Sen. Patricia Torres Ray (DFL-Mpls) sponsor the law, which takes effect the day after the Minneapolis school district files with the secretary of state a certificate indicating its approval of this law.

HF2360*/ SF2738/CH208