This changes the maximum deviation to 10%, and maximum standard deviation to 3%, which requires a split of Pierce.
However, without a constitutional amendment OMOV will strongly constrain the maximum deviations. Before Tennant most observers wouldn't even entertain some of the more modest deviations in plans such as mine for TN.
Federal Statute:
(1) Representatives shall be elected from districts that are reasonably compact, convenient, contiguous, represent communities of interest, and have reasonable population equality.
(2) Prior to the year ending in '9', each State shall delineate primary, secondary, and tertiary redistricting areas, which are the building blocks from which congressional districts are comprised.
(2a) Redistricting areas should reflect communities of interest and have relatively stable and long-term boundaries. Political subdivisions, such as counties, townships, municipalities, and school districts are preferred. Electoral districts such as legislative districts, county comissioner districts, city council districts, school attendance areas, which are likely to change should not be used. Where there are not political subdivision boundaries available, patterns of settlement, neighborhoods, etc., with well-known visible boundaries, such as rivers, streams, highways and major roads should be used.
(2b) Primary redistricting areas shall cover the entire state.
(2c) Secondary redistricting areas shall cover an entire primary redistricting area. One or more secondary redistricting may be defined in each primary redistricting area. Primary redistricting areas with more than 100,000 persons must be divided into two or more secondary redistricting areas.
(2d) Tertiary redistricting areas shall cover an entire secondary redistricting area. One or more secondary redistricting may be defined in each primary redistricting area. Primary redistricting areas with more than 100,000 persons must be divided into two or more tertiary redistricting areas.
(2e) Redistricting areas need not be self-contiguous, so long as they are based on political subdivision boundaries. States may treat geographically separated units of a political subdivision as separate redistricting areas.
(2f) Primary, secondary, and tertiary redistricting areas must properly nest. Adjustments in political boundaries may be necessary. [for example, in some states municipalities cross county boundaries. If counties were used for primary redistricting areas, and municipalities were used for secondary redistricting areas, then if a municipality crossed a county boundary, the primary redistricting area based on the county with the largest share of the municipality would include the entire municipality. Alternatively, the portions of the municipality that is in each county could be treated as a secondary redistricting area of the primary redistricting areas based on the counties.]
(2g) Delineation of redistricting areas should be done on a reasonably consistent basis across an entire State. This does not preclude consideration of local sentiment and decisions made by local government bodies, so long as the process is consistent.
(2h) Definition of contiguity relationships between primary redistricting areas; secondary redistricting areas within a primary redistricting area; and tertiary redistricting areas within a secondary redistricting area shall be made as part of the process of delineating redistricting area. [typically, adjacent (other than point adjacent) redistricting areas should be considered to be contiguous. But in some instances it is inconvenient to travel between the two areas due to lack of year-round highways or ferries. In other cases, highway routes are circuitous for a large share of the population, or depend on significant travel through other redistricting areas. However, insignificant travel through other redistricting areas does not preclude two adjacent redistricting areas from being considered contiguous]
(3) To the extend reasonable and practicable, districts shall be comprised of contiguous primary redistricting areas, or approximately equal population.
(3a) Primary redistricting areas shall not be split unless necessary to reduce the maximum relative absolute deviation to less than
20%10% or the relative standard deviation to less than
5%3%.
(3b) When dividing primary redistricting areas to satisfy (3a), as few primary redistricting areas as possible should be divided, so as to form the fewest number of area-district segments. An area-district segment is the portion of an area that is within a district, excluding any areas that are wholly within a single district.
(3c) To the extent reasonable and practicable, when dividing a primary redistricting area to satisfy (3a), an area-district segment should be comprised of contiguous secondary redistricting areas within the primary redistricting area; or that are adjacent to portions of the district that are in contiguous primary redistricting areas.
(3d) Secondary redistricting areas shall not be split unless necessary to reduce the maximum relative absolute deviation among all districts that include part of the primary redistricting area that contains the secondary redistricting area to less than 5%.
(3e) When dividing secondary redistricting areas to satisfy (3d), as few secondary redistricting areas as possible should be divided, so as to form the fewest number of area-district segments. An area-district segment is the portion of an area that is within a district, excluding any areas that are wholly within a single district.
(3f) To the extent reasonable and practicable, when dividing a secondary redistricting area to satisfy (3d), an area-district segment should be comprised of contiguous tertiary redistricting areas within the secondary redistricting area; or that are adjacent to portions of the district that are in contiguous secondary or primary redistricting areas.
(4) The target plan is the plan that in order of priority: (1) divides the fewest primary redistricting areas; (2) has the fewest primary area-district segments; (3) divides the fewest secondary area-district segments; and (4) has the fewest secondary area-district segments, and has the smallest relative standard deviation.
(4a) Alternative plans are plans that have the same number of divided redistricting areas and area-district as the target plan, and whose relative standard deviation is no more than 1.5 times the relative standard deviation of the target plan. If the relative standard deviation of the target plan is less than 1/3%, then an alternative plan may have a relative standard deviation of up to 0.5%.
(4b) Target and alternative plans shall be produced by an iterative process, in which members of the public may submit possible plans, that may improve the target plan.
(4c) A representative sample of the electorate shall choose the final plan from among the target and alternative plans. The procedure by which they choose the plan may limit their role to choosing those portions of the plan that have a direct effect on which district they reside in.
(5) Implementation schedule.
(5a) By 2015, State Department promulgates regulations.
(5b) By 2017, Each State implements statutes and regulations for post-2020 redistricting.
(5c) By 2019, Each State defines redistricting areas.
(5e) 2019-2021, Census Bureau produces geographic and population data necessary for redistricting based on 2020 Census.
(5f) 2021, Each state redistricts.
(5g) 2022, First used for election of 118th Congress.
Standard deviation is 1.6%.
