Decatur City Commission Compelled to Look at Creating Five Voting Distrists
Decatur Metro | May 17, 2011You may recall the post from yesterday detailing a note to the Decatur City Commission from City Manager Peggy Merriss about moving around 800 residents from the city’s northern voting district to the southern district.
Well, I’ve rarely seen the Commission more uncomfortable discussing an issue as last night when the Mayor suggested that in preparation for sending the new districts onto the U.S. Justice Department, the city better look at creating five voting districts – one for each commissioner – due to the current impossibility of creating a “minority majority” district using the current two district breakdown.
None of the five commissioners stated their preference in creating five districts, but it was decided the city better be prepared and at least look at if a five district breakdown would create a single “minority majority” district before submitting a two district breakdown – without a majority minority district – to the Justice Department for clearance under the Voting Rights Act.
Many of the commissioners said they believed that smaller districts would create too small a constituency for commissioners and all voiced their support for the current North/South representational division. If was also noted that if a “minority majority” district was created, it was likely that Commissioner Cunningham would most likely not be eligible to represent that district due to the location of her residency.
But looking at the New York Times census map, the Decatur’s black population looks pretty well dispersed – though the larger population looks to be on the west side of town – and the commission may be correct that a minority majority district is impossible even when divided into 5 districts.
Huh–clicked over to the NY Times census map above, and it’s really interesting. Even the Oakhurst census district is 61% white now. And there has been a *really* big shift in its demographics since 2000–white population up 113%, and black population down by 47% since 2000, now making up 32% of the overall population. The other 3 quadrants range from 70% to 80% white. With those numbers, I don’t see how you’d get a majority-minority district splitting the city up into 5 pieces, without some serious gerrymandering.
Five districts based on geographic lines would get real interesting for the School Board too. If, instead of 2 members from the District 1 (north), two from District 2 (south), and one at-large, the Board comprised one member from each of 5 districts, we wouldn’t have our current members. Looking at a map with the residences of the current Board members, both District 2 members reside around the block from each other and the at-large candidate lives nearby, all in the central north area of District 2. The two District 1 candidates don’t reside quite as near to one another but are both in the north of the District. The areas without representation are the entire eastern half of Decatur, the southern third, and a central band across the middle. If the City were to go to 5 neighborhood districts, I imagine that the current slate of School Board members would serve out their terms but would be replaced by elections using the new districts. Not sure if the effect would be positive or negative, but pretty sure the dynamics would be different. Other than for crossing the tracks, the northside-southside distinction would no longer be relevant. Might cause an identity crisis for some!
Oh, and to answer your question from yesterday, this definitely affects the school board vote. Also, Mayor Floyd (I think) asked the city manager if CSD had been informed of this potential change of shifting 800 people from north to south and she said they would officially communicate today.
It is a shame that in 2011 we still need to look at race when deciding how to set up voting districts.
How about just voting for Decatur commissioners based on merit and each person can vote for 2 commissioners? Top 5 get elected – seems easy to me
According to Wikipedia, President Bush extended the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years in 2006.
I’m not sure what your point is here, DM, but regardless:
On March 9, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bartlett v. Strickland that the Voting Rights Act does not require governments to draw district lines favorable to minority candidates when the district has minorities as less than half of the population.
I didn’t really have a point. Was just pointing out a fact I saw. That’s interesting. So what classifies as the “district” in Decatur’s case? The entire city?
But ANY changes must be precleared by the Justice Department.
At least the religious right can’t complain about this. Their bible does say that the sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons…
The “point” is that the Voting Rights Act does, in effect, require governments to “consider race” when drawing voting districts. So if a particular districting map results dilutes the minority vote by, for example, having two white-majority districts in a 50/50 county, the Justice Department won’t approve it. Districts need to be drawn so that the number of black to white representatives is proportionate to black to white demographic of the city.
It only applies to a number of states that were targeted by the Voting Rights Act for being, lets say, historically not so nice to black folks, including Georgia.
Good question, Rob.
And to take it the other direction…what about creating voting districts with regard to other groups? Sexual orientation. Children/no children. Age. Omnivore/vegetarian. Handicapped. Income level. Religion. Likes/Hates TDS. Maybe we can go far enough to give every Decatur resident their own voting district.
The VRA would only cover those if:
– they vote together,
–are a “community of interest,”
–and can show that under the “totality of the circumstances” they have suffered discrimination in voting rights.
Oh, and they form a majority within a “compact area”
So, on the whole, not likely.
“The VRA would only cover those if:
– they vote together,
–are a “community of interest,”
–and can show that under the “totality of the circumstances” they have suffered discrimination in voting rights.”
Thanks for the clarification.
I find it at least troubling, and maybe just plain insulting, to have legislation underpinned by the assumption that a group (racial or otherwise) will vote “together.”
Since you seem to know more about this stuff than anyone else on the board, two questions:
“Community of interest” as designated by whom?
I assume, and would love to be wrong, that the VRA has no specific language about how long a jurisdiction has to go without discriminating against a particular group’s voting rights before the mechanics of elections can be changed without DOJ review. In other words, is the only way for Southern jurisdictions to be out from under that requirement for the VRA to expire every 20-25 years?
“is the only way for Southern jurisdictions to be out from under that requirement for the VRA to expire every 20-25 years?”
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Pretty much. There’s also a procedure for counties or municipalities to gain exemption but it requires a declaratory judgment action in federal court. There have been a few cases where this was successful, mainly counties in Virginia. Interestingly, only one Georgia municipality has successfully bailed out from the preclearance requirement and that is Sandy Springs. Go figure…
Ah, I am far from being an expert! Why, I’m not even a lawyer!
But here are two great resources: Brennan Center’s Guide to Redistricting http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/a_citizens_guide_to_redistricting_2010_edition/
and a short guide to the VRA:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/05/973462/-Short-Guide-to-the-VRA
The latter with due apologies to “Token Republican”!
“I find it at least troubling, and maybe just plain insulting, to have legislation underpinned by the assumption that a group (racial or otherwise) will vote “together.””
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It’s not an “assumption,” its a statistical fact. The point of the legislation is to prevent minority voters from being unrepresented by their governments. And historically it has been very helpful toward increasing peoples’ access to their governments. That is an underpinning of democracy.
My understanding is that gerrymandering used to be done to ensure that blacks would not have a majority vote anywhere. So let’s say that a 1 mile square area was 90% black residents. Instead of the whole 1 mile square being included in a single district, where blacks would now make up 60% of the residents, it would be divided into quarters with each quarter going to a larger neighboring mostly-white district, resulting in four districts in which blacks might make up only 30-40% of the district. So legislation (VRA?) was passed to try to ensure that a mostly-minority area got to retain the power of its numbers in the voting process, rather than being diluted out by creative districting.
Don’t know the numbers well enough to know if diluting out the voting power of mostly black neighborhoods is still a risk with city redistricting. If it were, according the map above, the two communities at risk would be the very southern quarter of the city or the DHA homes area.
you are correct, this type of gerrymandering was what the voting rights act was meant to remedy.
Well there’s no federal legislation requiring any of that, so this is less a theoretical issue at the moment than a practical one.
*Sigh*
You guys take the fun out of being a smart-ass. Buzzkills.
I posted a couple of maps using Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) Census 2010 data. The ARC only provided this data in ArcGIS 10 compatible form and not everybody may have that software. The NYT map is nice but only goes down to tract level, whereas my maps show black percentage and black population block by block. See here: http://wp.me/pEli2-85
[img]http://opengeography.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/decaturblack1.jpg?w=231&h=300[/img]
Thanks!
Glancing at this map (and at the one listing population number ‘circles,’), it looks like I may have spoken too soon in saying that serious gerrymandering would be needed in make a majority-minority district, just some. If you take the public housing West of Commerce and off of W. Trinity and put it in a district extending south into much of Oakhurst (excluding the MAK district) and stretching a bit east at its south end to take in some of “College Heights” (the south central part of Decatur east of McDonough), you just might do it.
Not that I’m advocating it.