Florida Amendment 1, Apportionment of the Legislature Amendment (1959)

Florida Amendment 1
Election date November 3, 1959
Topic Redistricting policy and State legislatures measures
Status Defeated
Type Legislatively referred constitutional amendment	Origin State legislature

Florida Amendment 1 was on the ballot as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment in Florida on November 3, 1959. It was defeated.

A “yes” vote supported amending provisions relating to the apportionment of the legislature.

A “no” vote opposed amending provisions relating to the apportionment of the legislature.

Election results

Florida Amendment 1
Result		Votes	Percentage
Yes		143,668	44.38%
No		180,089	55.62%

Results are officially certified.

Source

Text of measure

Ballot title

The ballot title for Amendment 1 was as follows:

“

PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ARTICLE VII—REPRESENTATION- APPORTIONMENT A proposed amendment to Article VII of the Florida Constitution relating to apportionment in the Senate and House of Representatives providing: (a) that the State shall be apportioned into forty-four senatorial districts, that there shall be only one Senator for each district, no district shall be composed of more than three counties, that vacancies created by the reapportionment shall be filled in the general election in November 1960 and providing terms; (b) that the House of Representatives shall be apportioned as follows-five representatives for the most populous county, four for each of the six next more populous counties, two representatives for each of the fourteen next more populous counties and one representative for each of the remaining counties; (c) that the first apportionment of each legislative house shall be in accordance with statute designating senatorial districts and representation in the house adopt at the 1959 session of the legislature, the next apportionment of the Senate shall be at the regular session of 1971, the next apportionment of the House of Representatives shall be at the regular session of 1961 based on the 1960 Federal Census and decennially thereafter the Legislature shall reapportion the representation in the Legislature at any regular session as required the Governor or the Legislature itself shall call the Legislature into extraordinary session with 30 days after adjournment; after period of sixty days from date the extraordinary session is convened, the governor or the Legislature may recess the Legislature to a future data or may adjourn the Legislature sine die;(e) that newly created counties shall have one representative in the house and be part of such adjoining senatorial district as the Legislature shall determine until succeeding reapportionment.

”

Path to the ballot

See also: Amending the Florida Constitution

A 60% vote was required during one legislative session for the Florida State Legislature to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot. That amounted to a minimum of 51 votes in the Florida House of Representatives and 18 votes in the Florida State Senate, assuming no vacancies. Amendments did not require the governor's signature to be referred to the ballot. Amendments on the ballot required a simple majority vote in this year.

See also

1959 Measures

• 1959 Measures
• State legislatures measures on the ballot
• Redistricting policy on the ballot
• 1959 legislative sessions

Florida

• Florida ballot measures
• Florida ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls

External links

• Florida Constitution Revision Commission, "Florida's Constitutions: The Documentary History"
• Ocala Star-Banner, "Automatic Voting Machine Sample Ballot, School Millage and Trustee Election and Special Election, November 3, 1959, Marion County, Florida," October 25, 1959