S-2864.1  _______________________________________________

                   SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 8218

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington   57th Legislature 2001 Second Special Session

By Senators Kohl‑Welles, Patterson, Snyder, McCaslin, Finkbeiner, Jacobsen and Fraser

Read first time 06/11/2001.  Referred to Committee on State & Local Government.

Providing for election of state representatives from single districts.

    BE IT RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, IN LEGISLATIVE SESSION ASSEMBLED:

    THAT, At the next general election to be held in this state the secretary of state shall submit to the qualified voters of the state for their approval and ratification, or rejection, an amendment to Article II, sections 5 and 6 of the Constitution of the state of Washington to read as follows:

    Article II, section 5.  The next election of the members of the house of representatives after the adoption of this Constitution shall be on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, eighteen hundred and ninety, and thereafter, members of the house of representatives shall be elected biennially and their term of office shall be two years; and each election shall be on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, unless otherwise changed by law.  Members of the house of representatives shall be elected by single districts of convenient and contiguous territory.

    Article II, section 6.  After the first election the senators shall be elected by single districts of convenient and contiguous territory, at the same time and in the same manner as members of the house of representatives are required to be elected((; and no representative district shall be divided in the formation of a senatorial district)).  They shall be elected for the term of four years, one‑half of their number retiring every two years.  The senatorial districts shall be numbered consecutively, and the senators chosen at the first election had by virtue of this Constitution, in odd numbered districts, shall go out of office at the end of the first year; and the senators, elected in the even numbered districts, shall go out of office at the end of the third year.

    BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That this amendment is a single amendment within the meaning of Article XXIII, section 1 of the state Constitution.

    BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the secretary of state shall cause notice of this constitutional amendment to be published at least four times during the four weeks next preceding the election in every legal newspaper in the state.

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