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Oklahoma
State Senate For Immediate Release:
February 14, 2007 Bill to Create Task Force on Judicial and District Attorney Redistricting Clears Committee The Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday gave approval to a measure that would create a task force to study the redistricting of district attorney and judicial districts. Senate Bill 990 by Sen. Kenneth Corn would create a 12-member task force, consisting of House and Senate members, two district judges appointed by the Supreme Court and two district attorneys appointed by the District Attorney’s Council. “As the Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety and Judiciary, I often get requests from counties for additional judges,” said Corn, D-Poteau. “We may need to be looking into whether we have an adequate number of judges in the appropriate locations throughout the state. This task force will allow us to ensure that people are getting adequate representation both judicially and through district attorney’s offices.” Two members of the Judiciary Committee and two members of the Public Safety and Judiciary Committee will be appointed by the Senate President Pro Tempore. The Speaker of the House will appoint two members of the House Judiciary Committee and two members of the Civil Justice Subcommittee. The task force would make any recommendations on redistricting to the leadership of the House and Senate. Corn explained that certain rapidly growing counties in Oklahoma are a part of judicial districts that include, in some cases, several other counties. “There are some district attorneys offices, such as Tulsa, Cleveland and Oklahoma counties where there is only a county attorney,” Corn said. “In some of the rural counties, there are district attorneys that have as many as four counties. In rapidly growing counties, the case load is growing exponentially, but the ability of the office to handle the caseload is not.” The measure will now advance to the full Senate for consideration.
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