Cam Gordon asks: > I am curious about this as well. <snip> I would like to hear from > others out there (Brian?, David?). It is the position of the City > Elections department that the council cannot do anything, but must set the > precinct boundaries.
I'm no lawyer (as has been amply proven) but I agree with the Elections department. The charter delegates boundary-setting to a majority of Redistricting Commissioners who sign the new map. However, I believe state law demands local units of government enact precinct boundaries for elections. Failure to do so would probably violate state law. (By the way, the city limited itself to 10 precincts per ward in earlier budget-cutting, which means we'll have a few fewer precincts.) > If indeed the council os powerless in all this, is this the best way to do > redistricting? The powerlessness is a good thing - again, I applaud '90s reformers who reduced the DFL hegemony. The problem is that too much power was redistributed to parties with little city support (GOP and Independence parties had 50 percent of the appointed commissioners) and overall, the commission was TOO partisan - everyone had a party axe to grind, there were no true independents and non-affiliated people. I still like my binding arbitration idea. Set up a political panel (re-jiggered slightly so no party has a majority, a la the '90s reform, but no party is grossly over-represented, the 2000 problem) and one made up of those with no history of party involvement. Let a three-judge panel chosen by the state Supreme Court (or some non-Minneapolis judiciary) pick one or the other plan, but not both. That forces both groups to draw reasonable plans, because an extreme one is less likely to be chosen. By the way, I would also get of some archaic or inconsistent Charter requirements. We have a prohibition on districts being more than twice as tall as wide - but nothing against a district being more than twice as wide as tall! (Also, the charter doesn't define tall as north-south, which is sloppy). Get rid of that junk and set a mathematical compactness standard - it's easy to do these days. > Terrell goes on to say that downtown is a neighborhood. I think downtown > may actually be a few neighborhoods. Under the new plan, however, they are > all placed in with the affluent areas of Cedar Lake and Lake of Isles to > form a new whiter and richer 7th ward. My point was not that the council > might not all be concerned or involved in downtown, but that what happens > there will now be further removed from input from the diverse interests of > neighborhoods. This after a campaign where downtown development was > clearly an issue for many voters. A couple of points here: 1. Lisa Goodman already represents 86-89 percent of Downtowners. Maybe 2,000 Downtowners moved from 5 to 7 (see the map in this week's Skyway News!) Natalie Johnson Lee has a fair point that because some of these folks have clout she might lose leverage - but my point is this is not a seismic shift or a sea change, population-wise 2. I absolutely do not think Downtown development decisions will be affected by this. The council treats Downtown on two levels: as a major commercial center they all muck around in (reasonable, since the revenues prop up the city), and as a growing neighborhood with its own livability concerns. The last council ran roughshod over Goodman on Target Store - then and now in her ward. While the new council's development priorities may be different, I'm pretty sure they won't cede decisions on the big projects to her. > I am also concerned about this downtown ward because it will contain 25% > minority population (according to the city figures) and much of that > appears to come from shelters. Compare this to the 85% minority > population of the 5th ward and it almost appears we are l ooking at > classic cases of the "silk stocking" and "packing" redistricting tricks > some of you may have read about in history books. Two things: 1. Are you saying shelter residents shouldn't count? That's dangerous - the "less of a man" slippery slope. I realize the meaning is that they don't have to represented (ala the City Hall jail prisoners put in the current 5th), but I don't think the Voting Rights Act lets you make such distinctions. 2. Consider that the finagling went in other directions: for example, the 4th ward is 49 percent minority but the next-door 5th is 82 percent. Although the 4th has a higher base percentage of minorities, if you're making the case for packing, look northwest as well as east into Downtown. David Brauer King Field _______________________________________ 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
