Map Maker, Map Maker, Make Me a Map
One bit of consternation from the City-County Council’s recent budget vote was the allocation of $290,000 for redistricting. In 2010 a new census will be taken and those figures will be used to draw a new City-County Council map. What makes this interesting is although the census is being taken in 2010, the full results won’t be available until the Spring of 2011. The primary is in May; however candidates have to file by February.
Complicating matters is the Indiana Code (IC 3-11-1.5-32) which says, for the most part, no redistricting can be done after November 8 of the year proceeding the year in which a municipal election is to be held and before the day following the date on which the municipal election is to be held. One would think that this would be an open and shut case and the Council could not redraw the map before the primary.
My political counterpart Amos Brown went out of his way in a recent column in the Indianapolis Recorder to make this argument. However my good friend Mr. Brown and the people who have come out of the closet to support him (talk about strange bedfellows) have failed to grasp one minor fact. Although the Code says you cannot redistrict after November 8th of the year proceeding the election, there is no prohibition on redrawing the map before the November 8th deadline; prior to completing the census.
Where’s that? Section 3 of IC 36-3-4-3; the law states the following…
This division shall be made during the second year after a year in which a federal decennial census is conducted and may also be made at any other time, subject to IC 3-11-1.5-32.
This means the Council can redraw the maps before the census is complete by using early data as outlined by IC 1-1-3.5-3, but they would also have to redraw the maps after census is done as well. As long as the Council doesn’t draw a map between November 8, 2010 and November 3, 2011, it is free to do as it pleases, within reason of course. The law the new maps would have to be compact, subject to natural boundaries, of near equal population and do not cross precinct boundary lines. And history has shown that maps drawn using early census data don’t change that much once the final data is available.
And for the people ready to jump out of the hood and yell racism and Voting Rights Act violations, as long as African-Americans don’t have a net loss of any representation on the Council, I really don’t see any place where the Free Huey crowd has to go. If anything, Latinos may have a claim if enough of them are concentrated in one area.
And just to add some icing to the cake, there is another provision about redistricting that I don’t think anyone opposed to early redistricting has read, IC 36-3-4-3.
An election of the legislative body held under the ordinance or court judgment determining districts that is in effect on the date of the election is valid, regardless of whether the ordinance or judgment is later determined to be invalid.
And if you still don’t believe me, I point you back to 1991 and 1971, where the Council used preliminary data to draw maps for the subsequent elections in 1993 and 1973. The 1991 redistricting was done based on 1990 data as the result of litigation involving the at-large seats and minority representation on the Council.
Now we can debate whether this is a good use of taxpayer funds and whether the Council should just wait until 2011 to redistrict. But to try to make the legal argument that it can’t be done doesn’t fly, especially when it’s clear opponents haven’t read the code in its entirety. Better luck next time.
