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ALBANY, GA -- Rep. Roger Lane (R-Darien), Chairman of the House Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Committee, today released a proposed redistricting plan for the Georgia House of Representatives. You can view the plan at the Georgia General Assembly's Joint Offices website.

Initial Story

District lines are getting ready to be redrawn in Georgia. But before legislators tackle the job, one of them talked to citizens to explain how the process works.

“Reapportionment comes about because of the every 10 year census that we have,” said Jay Smith of the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce.

That's why for their lunch with leaders program, the Chamber of Commerce brought in the man on the front lines of drawing the district lines, Local representative Ed Rynders, who is on the redistricting committee.

“We're going to talk about reapportionment, what they law says you must do. What are the considerations you must give to each district, primarily that you keep one man one vote and keep the minority districts intact,” said Rynders.

Rynders talked to voters just before he gets ready to head to Atlanta for a special called session about redistricting.

“It's obviously important to know who your elected officials are going to be. What kind of voice your going to have on state matters and to make sure that you can elect the best people possible to advocate for your values,” said Rynders.

Georgia is one of the fastest growing states in the country about 10 million people live here, but not in Southwest Georgia. We've actually lost population. In Dougherty County about 1,500 people have moved out over the past ten years and for the region as a whole it means we could lose representation.

“Certainly if we have a more sparse population it's going to mean that we, in Southwest Georgia and South Georgia are going to have less people representing it,” said Smith.

“I think the important thing as a region is that we reach out to other representatives and other senators, if in fact we end up losing some representation and that's the exact reason why we need that regional cooperation. We may need to reach three of four counties over to other representatives in order to benefit the region,” said Rynders.

Representatives will begin their 30-day session on Monday to starting drawing those district lines.