Senate Passes Bill to Create Task Force on Judicial and District Attorney Redistricting

The Senate on Wednesday approved a measure that would create a task force to study the redistricting of district attorney and judicial districts.

Sen. Kenneth Corn, author of Senate Bill 990, said the bill was needed to ensure that areas throughout the state are receiving adequate judicial representation.

“What we want to accomplish with this task force is to look at districts throughout the state and ultimately ensure that each district has enough judges and prosecutors to handle their case load,” said Corn, D-Poteau. “Some districts in Oklahoma span a number of counties, and in growing areas courts are finding their case loads growing rapidly while their ability to deal with so many cases is not.”

The measure would create a 12-member task force, consisting of two district judges appointed by the Supreme Court and two district attorneys appointed by the District Attorney’s Council, along with members of the House and Senate.

“Nearly every year we get requests for additional judges,” Corn said. “We want to look and see what we’re doing because we’ve got districts that have too much of a caseload and not many judges. On the other hand, we have districts that don’t have much of a caseload and may have too many judges.”

Corn noted that the Legislature has not examined the issue of judicial redistricting since 1969.

“Some of these districts have grown dramatically in population, so we just want to take a look at this and see whether we need to make any changes,” Corn said.

The bill will now advance to a House committee for consideration.