Actually, I don't know enough about the Minneapolis charter to refute my friend, Terrell's submission that Minneapolis has to wait for the state, but the St. Paul Charter Commission has been at the business of redistricting, including the drawing of three alternative maps for ward redistricting for several months.
Also, Terrell say the new wards last decade were drawn in 1990. Hardly possible since that's the year of the census. Possible it was in 1991, but likely even later, but perhaps in time for the 1991 elections. If that was the case, the city redrawing took place well in advance of the state even then. My sense is that, unless the charter specifies otherwise, redistricting should be under way right now. Otherwise, little time will be left prior to the 2002 elections. Yes, I know the next city election is in 2003, but the lines should be set before 2002 in case a death or other departure creates a vacancy and the ensuing special election would straddle two maps. The criteria is essentially the extent to which redistricting should adhere to state parameters over the deviation from populations and the changes wrought by another decade of shifts in each ward. St. Paul settled on an extremely low deviation - �2.5%. The state and other jurisdictions usually run between 4% and 5%, minimizing the need to drastically re-draw current ward lines. (Something just happened to take away several paragraphs that followed this. Hmmm. Legislative gremlins?) Briefly, then: Legislative districts don't have to honor neighborhood contiguity, but city wards should. That makes it almost impossible to make state and city districts contiguous. Also, the "pairings" referred to - two incumbents redrawn in together, happens all the time. Party goals are to minimize that because the power of incumbency is absent in the other district, now vacant and wide open for a different party to capture. Andy Driscoll Saint Paul ------ "The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, remain neutral" --Dante > From: "Terrell Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 > 13:19:39 -0600 To: "Minneapolis Issues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Mpls] New > wards > > > --- Conor Donnelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: While examining the latest > redistricting map, I'm wondering why our city ward boundaries don't match up > with the state legislative districts? Effectively nesting these boundaries > would seem to give citizens a clearer picture of their elected representation. > Also, it might foster more collaboration between council members and state > reps since their constituents wrapped together in similar packages. Would > things be improved by matching boundaries? > > [TB] By law the city draws new ward lines AFTER the new legislative districts > are drawn. Nothing prevents the city from attempting to follow the > legislative district lines, however, remember that some of the legislative > districts may well include residents of more than one municipality. As > example the new Senate District 63 proposed yesterday includes both > Minneapolis and Edina. > > > > Loki Anderson: > >> Also, if I am not mistaken, and please correct me if I am wrong, the city >> charter dictates that at the time of redistricting no current member of the >> council can be put into a new ward with any other member. The rationale would >> be that since we do not have any immediate new election of council members >> after redistricting, every ward would still need to have representation. That >> puts a serious limitation on the people charged with redistricting in the >> city. >> > [TB] I've been told by a couple of members of the Charter Commission that 2 > councilmembers could reside in the same ward after the new lines have been > drawn. That is the reason that the 2000 election for State Senate was for a 2 > year term (as was 1990) allowing for elections from the new districts after > redistricting and the entire Hennepin County Board will be elected in 2002 > (some to 4 year terms, some to 3 year terms to get the stagger back). > > When we got new city ward lines in 1990 the council had 2 year terms so it > wasn't an issue. Someone in a new ward without a councilmember could well > file suit to declare a seat open and force an election. Would it be > successful? Who knows? > > > > Terrell Brown Loring Park > > _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil > City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls > _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
