2017 SJR 25: Proposal for each county to have a senator

What SJR 25 does

Senate Joint Resolution No. 25 has been proposed by Senator Girod.  This proposal is to amend Article IV, sections 2, 3, 6 and 7 of the Oregon State Constitution.  Article IV is about the Legislative Branch.  I have written about these sections here and here. This proposal is to have each county have its own Senator.  There are changes required to all of the referenced sections to align all the text.

My View

What this does is to change the balance to lean towards the Rural and away from the Urban counties within the Senate.  I think this is a good thing.  It also has the side effect of making State Senate seats immune to gerrymandering.  It increases the total number of Senate seats to 36 which upsets the 2 to 1 ratio between House and Senate, but this was an arbitrary ratio in the past anyway.