Rep. Matt Ramsey, R-Peachtree City, will play a pivotal role in the process of reapportionment of districts for both the state’s House of Representatives and also the state Senate later this year.

Ramsey has been assigned to chair the subcommittee for House and Senate Legislative Districts by Roger Lane, R-Darien, who chairs the House of Representatives Reapportionment Committee.

The process of reapportionment, which occurs every 10 years as new U.S. Census data is released, has significant political ramifications. That data is used to drive the minor and major changes that are made to the district lines for each and every member of the House and the Senate as well as those for Georgia’s Congressional districts for both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

The Georgia Legislature will hold a series of public hearings to allow citizens to provide input into the reapportionment process.

Fayette stands to be well-represented in both chambers when it comes to reapportionment matters. Not only will Ramsey play a key role, but Sen. Ronnie Chance, R-Tyrone, is a member of the Senate’s Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee.

The first meeting of the House reapportionment committee is slated for today at 2 p.m.

Fayette historically shared legislators with Spalding and Coweta counties through the last part of the 20th century. But Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes carved up Fayette in 2001 and pieced it out to no fewer than seven legislators with mostly multi-county districts, the majority of them members of the Democratic Party, although Fayette by that time was a nearly monolithic Republican stronghold.

With Republicans holding the governorship and majorities in both houses of the General Assembly this year, and with Chance and Ramsey holding significant reapportionment committee appointments, the outcome this time may well reverse the results of the last decade.