Article CI of the Articles of Amendments to the Constitution of the Commonwealth is hereby annulled, and the following is adopted in place thereof:

            Article CI

            SECTION 1. The House of Representatives shall consist of one hundred and sixty members, each of whom shall be elected from one representative district.  Every representative shall have been an inhabitant of the district for which he or she is chosen for at least one year at least immediately preceding his or her election and shall cease to represent such district when he or she shall cease to be an inhabitant of the Commonwealth, provided, however, that for the first redistricting following the adoption of this article, the General Court may suspend the residency requirement of this section.

             SECTION 2.  The Senate shall consist of forty members, each of whom shall be elected from one senatorial district.  Every senator shall have been an inhabitant of the Commonwealth for at least five years immediately preceding his or her election and shall be an inhabitant of the district for which he or she has been selected at the time of his or her election and shall cease to represent such senatorial district when he or she shall cease to be an inhabitant of the Commonwealth.

            SECTION 3. The manner of calling and conducting the elections for the choice of representatives, senators, and councilors, and of ascertaining their election, shall be prescribed by law.  Nothing contained in this article shall be interpreted as preventing the General Court from adopting laws requiring alternative voting systems such as ranked order balloting or multimember districts.

            SECTION 4. The federal census shall be the basis for determining the representative, senatorial, congressional, and governor’s council districts for the ten-year period beginning with the first Wednesday in January following the commencement of the taking of said census. 

            SECTION 5.    In the year after each census is commenced, an Independent Redistricting Commission shall be convened and shall divide the Commonwealth into one hundred and sixty representative districts, forty senatorial districts, eight councilor districts, and an appropriate number of Congressional districts as required by federal law.  All districts shall be drawn of contiguous territory and each district shall have the same population as practicable to achieve the goals listed below and to meet Constitutional standards.  Districts shall be drawn in accordance with federal law, including the federal Voting Rights Act.  Districts shall, to the maximum extent possible, in the following order of priority seek to: (1)  not divide among more than one district cities and towns; (2) group communities of interest, as defined by similarities in social, cultural, ethnic, and economic interest, prevalent occupations and lifestyles, school districts, and other formal relationships between municipalities; (3) nest representative districts entirely within senatorial districts, and senatorial districts within Congressional districts and councillor districts; and (4) maintain geographic compactness of districts.  No district shall be drawn for the purpose of diluting the voting strength of a language or racial minority group, or augmenting or diluting the voting strength of a political party, or any individual.  Addresses of any individual, including any officeholder, and party affiliation or voting history of residents of the Commonwealth shall not be considered in drawing district lines. 

            SECTION 6.   The Independent Redistricting Commission shall consist of nine member commissioners. The following persons or entities shall each appoint, on or before January 15^th of the year following the commencement of the federal census, one member of the Independent Redistricting Commission: the Governor of the Commonwealth, who shall appoint a dean or professor of law or political science or government at a private institution of higher learning in the Commonwealth; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, who shall appoint a retired justice who resides in the Commonwealth; the State Secretary, who shall appoint a former chief of the elections division in the office of the State Secretary or a former chief legal counsel to said division, or a member of a non-profit organization that advocates for voting rights; the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law of the Boston Bar Association, who shall not appoint a member of their own staff, a governing board member, or other officer; and the League of Women Voters, who shall not appoint a member of their own staff, a governing board member, or other officer.  If any of the foregoing institutions ceases to exist, the remaining appointing officials and entities shall select a replacement entity of similar stature and profile.  

            The remaining four members of the Independent Redistricting Commission shall be chosen by the five direct appointees as follows.  The House Speaker, the House Minority Leader, the Senate President, and the Senate Minority Leader shall each nominate five individuals, on or before January 15^th of the year following the commencement of the federal census.   The five direct appointees shall then select one of the five nominees named by each said official.

            If nominations or appointments are not made by the January 15^th deadline the entity or person responsible for making the appointment or nominations shall forfeit his or her rights under this section and the remaining direct appointees shall then make an appointment to fill the vacancy.

            The chair of the Independent Redistricting Commission shall be selected by a majority of its members.

            Nominations and appointments, both direct and indirect, shall reflect the geographic, racial, ethnic, gender, and age diversity of the Commonwealth to the maximum extent feasible and shall be selected on the basis of civic involvement and knowledge of redistricting policy, civil rights, political science, demographics or statistics, election expertise, voting rights, community organizing, or law.  No person nominated or appointed to the Independent Redistricting Commission shall have held, in the previous five years, Congressional, state legislative or statewide elective office, mayor or city councilor of a city in the Commonwealth, selectman of a town in the Commonwealth, governor’s councilor, or been elected to a state or federal party committee, or be a current employee of any of the above.  Nominees and appointees shall agree: (1) not to stand for election to the General Court or Congress until districts are redrawn following the next census; (2) to apply the provisions of this article in an honest, independent, and impartial fashion; and (3) to act at all times so as to uphold public confidence in the integrity of the redistricting process. 

            SECTION 7.  The Independent Redistricting Commission shall be convened no later than February 15 of the year following the commencement of the decennial census.  The Independent Redistricting Commission shall disband only upon final adoption and exhaustion of judicial review of challenges to representative, councilor, congressional, and senatorial districts.

            SECTION 8.   The Independent Redistricting Commission shall hire staff and may retain experts to assist it in the performance of its duties.  Commissioners shall receive compensation on a per diem basis for actual time spent on Independent Redistricting Commission duties and shall be reimbursed for reasonable and necessary expenses.  The budget of the Commonwealth shall provide adequate funding for the operation of the Independent Redistricting Commission.

            SECTION 9.   A member of the Independent Redistricting Commission or an appointing authority may petition the Supreme Judicial Court to remove and replace a commissioner on the grounds of neglect, misconduct, or inability to perform the duties of a commissioner.

            SECTION 10.  All meetings of the Independent Redistricting Commission shall be noticed and open to the public, except that the Commission may adjourn to executive session to consider personnel matters, as is provided in the laws of the Commonwealth concerning open meetings.  All documents produced by the Independent Redistricting Commission shall be public.  The Independent Redistricting Commission shall hold public hearings in at least five distinct geographic areas of the state to assist it in determining communities of interest and factors relevant to the redistricting process. The public shall be afforded the opportunity to submit proposed maps for consideration by the Independent Redistricting Commission and the Commission shall make map-making software available for public use in as accessible a format as is possible.  The Independent Redistricting Commission shall take all steps necessary to ensure that the public can exercise its right to review and comment on proposed district maps before they are approved, including publishing all preliminary and final plans in publicly accessible forums, such as on the state’s website.  Proposed districts shall be presented in both graphic and narrative form.

            SECTION 11.  Within one hundred and twenty days of convening, the Independent Redistricting Commission shall prepare and publish preliminary representative, councilor, congressional, and senatorial district plans for public comment. The public, including members of the General Court, shall have no less than a three-week period to make comment on the preliminary district plans.  The Independent Redistricting Commission may revise the preliminary district plans in response to public comment and shall submit the revised plans to the General Court for approval.  The General Court shall vote on the revised plans within two weeks of submission.  No amendments may be made.  If no vote is taken within the two-week period after submission, the plans as submitted shall become law.  If the plans are approved by a majority of the members of the House and Senate present and voting, then the plans as submitted shall become law. If the plans are rejected, then the Independent Redistricting Commission shall revise the districts and publish a second round of preliminary district plans for public comment.  After a three-week public-comment period, during which the Independent Redistricting Commission may revise the second-round preliminary district plans, the Independent Redistricting Commission shall submit the second-round revised district plan, to the General Court.  The General Court shall vote on the second-round revised district plan within one week of submission.  No amendments may be made. If no vote is taken within the two-week period after submission, the plans as submitted shall become law.  If the plans are approved by a majority of the members of the House and Senate present and voting, then the plans as submitted shall become law.  If the General Court votes to reject the second-round plans, then the Independent Redistricting Commission shall prepare a third round preliminary district plan for public comment and vote, following the procedure applicable to the second round.  If a third round fails to result in approval by the General Court, then the Independent Redistricting Commission shall prepare a fourth round of maps which shall be published for public comment during a three-week period.  The Independent Redistricting Commission may revise the fourth-round preliminary district plan in response to public comment.  The plan, so revised, shall become law without submission to or approval by the General Court.

            SECTION 12.  Original jurisdiction is hereby vested in the Supreme Judicial Court upon the petition of any voter of the Commonwealth, filed with the clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for the Commonwealth, for judicial relief relative to the establishment of the representative, councilor, congressional, and senatorial districts.  The General Court may by law limit the time within which judicial proceedings may be instituted to challenge any redistricting map.

            SECTION 13.  The Independent Redistricting Commission shall have standing in legal actions regarding redistricting plans and the adequacy of resources provided for the operation of the Independent Redistricting Commission.  The Independent Redistricting Commission shall have sole authority to determine whether the Massachusetts Attorney General or counsel hired and or selected by the Independent Redistricting Commission shall represent the people of Massachusetts in the legal defense of a redistricting plan.