Floterial district
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A floterial district is a legislative district that includes several separate districts that are also independently represented in the legislative body, but whose combined population entitles the area to another seat. It is a technique that a state may be authorized to use to achieve more equal apportionment by population during redistricting.[1]
In common usage, a floterial district is not just a multi-town district, but a multi-town district that "floats" over towns that already elect one or more legislators. For example, a city due more than five representatives but not quite six might elect five representing the city itself, and one more in a floterial district that includes some neighboring towns whose small populations, alone, would not merit even a single representative.
Several U.S. states have used floterial districts for state offices, including Alaska, Idaho, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Texas, but only New Hampshire currently has them.[2]
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New Hampshire's Rockingham District 32 is a floterial district comprising Brentwood, Danville, and Fremont, whose voters jointly elect one representative; each of these towns separately elects one other representative of Rockingham 6, 8, and 7, respectively. Floterial districts may have multiple representatives; for example, Claremont and one adjoining town elect three representatives to Sullivan District 6, they and seven other towns elect two more to the floterial district Sullivan 8, and those seven towns also elect two representatives from districts Sullivan 4 and 5 respectively.[3]
In Austria the National Council is elected using an open list proportional representation system that employs three rungs of floterial districts; each of the nine States of Austria constitutes a state-level electoral district, and is also divided into smaller local districts, of which there are 39 in total. The higher-rung floterial districts are used merely for leveling seats; Seats are first filled at the local district level, using the Hare method; seats unfilled for the local district are then filled for the state district, also using the Hare method;[4] any remaining seats are allocated using the D'Hondt method at the federal level, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's national vote share and its share of parliamentary seats.[5]
Based on the Reapportionment Act of 1929, 2 U.S.C. § 2a reapportions the U.S. House to the states following each decennial census. If a state received additional representatives but failed to redistrict, the additional representatives would be elected at-large, so the entire state would be a floterial district. This has occurred in many states. However, subsequent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, such as Reynolds v. Sims (the "one man, one vote" decision), now oblige the states to redistrict.