I go bravely into the world of digital discovery. Many thanks for list member Bert Black's excellent reprise of our first meeting.
The City Attorney touched on matters related to the various rules, regulations, statutes, and case law that govern our process, time schedule and redistricting requirements. Not wishing to burden the list with great detail, I would only like to call attention to two bullet points under requirements. We are required to avoid a plan which denies or abridges the rights of racial and language minorities. 42 U.S. C.A. para. 1973(1981). With respect to a minority which is sufficiently large and compact to constitute a majority in a ward that is politically cohesive, and whose preferred candidate would usually be defeated in voting by the white majority, a plan probably must be created which gives the minority a fair chance to win. Thornbury v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986); Growe V. Emison, 507 U.S. 25 (1993). Race may be considered in drawing the ward boundaries so that the political power of a racial minority is preserved and its voting power not diluted, However, there is no requirement in the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act of proportional representation of racial or ethnic minorities. City of Mobile v. Bolden, 466 U.S. 55 (1980). We were informally agreed that there should be an early effort to involve such minority communities of interest in these important considerations but understood that our first order of business was to proceed to the selection of a chair for the Commission. My own understanding of the information assets available to us *all* tells me that there needs to be a way for the general public to view the same population characteristics that we commissioners are constrained to contemplate. These are renditions of population characteristics at the block level as reported to us by the 2000 Census and displayed for our information via the Maptitude software that Bert Black references. Maps of these datasets are required playing fields and I am mulling over ways of making sure that every effort is made to encourage informed input from minority communities of interest at this detailed level of data scrutiny. Fred Markus, Horn Terrace Ward Ten, Redistricting Commissioner _______________________________________ 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
