Nesting is the
delimitation of
voting districts for one elected body in order to define the voting districts for another body. For example, in
California, the
State Assembly (the
lower house) is composed of 80 members, each one representing 1/80th of California's population, and the
State Senate (the
upper house) is composed of 40 members, each one representing 1/40th of California's population. In this case, the process of nesting could either be first defining the 80 Assembly districts, and then defining the Senate districts as a merge of two Assembly districts, or first defining the 40 Senate districts, and then creating the Assembly districts by splitting each Senate district into two. If the Assembly districts and the Senate districts are created independently of each other, then the process of nesting is not used.