Key Points:

• Sen. J.D. Mesnard proposes adding 30 more to the state House

• Current system has two representatives for each of the 30 legislative districts

• Mesnard’s plan would delay changes until the 2040 census results

So how many state lawmakers is enough?

Sen. J.D. Mesnard says 90 — 30 senators and 60 representatives — is too few. So he is proposing to add 30 more to the state House.

The current system has two representatives for each of the 30 legislative districts, with each theoretically representing everyone in their district. 

Mesnard would like to take those 30 districts and divide each of them into three, creating a total of 90 districts, and authorizing each to have its own representative. 

Why? Right now, each district has about 254,000 residents. And that, Mesnard contends, makes it hard for anyone to truly represent everyone in a district.

Divide that into three and each House member would represent fewer than 85,000.

“This is about good governance,” Mesnard said. “It allows for the House members to be a little more closer to the people.”

What his plan also does, he said, is bring Arizona more in line with other states. Mesnard shared a chart with colleagues showing that the average state House has 110 members.

And then there’s the fact that the 254,000 residents per representative is exceeded only by California, where each of their 80 member Assembly — the equivalent of the Arizona House — represents more than 491,000 constituents.

Still, he said, there are things to be worked out if the measure clears the Senate, House and, ultimately, the voters. It starts with having the new lines drawn by the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission which meets after each decennial census.

There’s also the question of cost — an estimated $1 million to the state budget for legislator salaries and daily living expenses alone.

And that’s just part of it.

“I think the bigger question is, where do you put them,” Mesnard said.

The current House chamber, built in the 1960s, is designed for the current 60 members.

Sen. Jake Hoffman said he doesn’t see any reason that more lawmakers can’t be accommodated. The Queen Creek Republican said there are plenty of “fancy desks” for new representatives, though they are no larger than the ones he and his other 29 Senate colleagues are already assigned.

More challenging, however, is the problem of office space. 

Mesnard acknowledged there could be construction costs, pointing to long-shelved plans to modernize — and possibly rebuild entirely — both the House and Senate.

Still, he urged colleagues not to think in terms of dollars and cents.

“If cost is the overriding factor, we can reverse it and shrink the size of the Legislature,” Mesnard said.

“It will be very efficient and very cheap,” he said. “I don’t know if it would be very representative. But you can do that.”

Mesnard also pointed out that there is at least some precedent for what he is suggesting.

Prior to 1966, there actually were 80 state representatives, chosen according to a formula that assigned each county a certain number based largely on population.

All that fell apart after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 1964 ruling known as “one man, one vote.” In essence, the justices said that state legislative districts must have roughly equal population.

U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver, in a 2021 article in the Arizona State Law Journal, said state lawmakers initially balked at drawing new lines, “likely because the legislators did not want to apportion themselves out of office.” What it took, she said, was a successful lawsuit by Gary Peter Klahr, then a law student at Arizona State University, to finally get some action.

That resulted in the current 60-member House.

What it also did was reduce the influence of rural Democrats who, until that time, used the county-based system to control the process. And the House in 1966 went from being 45-35 Democrat to 33-27 Republicans — an edge that, to this date, the GOP has never lost in the lower chamber.

Sen. Lauren Kuby said she sees some benefit to what Mesnard is proposing.

“I believe it would increase representation,” said the Tempe Democrat. She also said it could remove some barriers, financial and otherwise, for would-be candidates, what with having to knock on fewer doors and spend money mailing out campaign material.

“But I think it needs more thoughtful consideration,” Kuby said. And for her, that means having some sort of study looking at all the possibilities instead of just going ahead now and asking voters to approve the plan in November.

“There may be other alternatives to reform a system,” she said as she voted against the plan when it went through the Senate Government Committee.

Mesnard, for his part, acknowledged the difficulty that remains even if voters approve.

His initial plan called for the new districts to be drawn up after the 2030 census. But the measure awaiting a final Senate vote, puts off any changes until the 2040 census, meaning the first time Arizona could choose to elect 90 representatives would be in 2042.

He noted, though, that by that point the need for smaller House districts could be even greater, with the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity saying by that year the state population could top 10 million. That would mean more than 330,000 residents of each district under the current system — or 110,000 if the change is approved.

None of what is in Mesnard’s plan would alter how state senators are chosen. There would remain just one for each of the 30 districts.