Conor Donnelly asks, "How come two Green Party members were not
selected in the same manner as the 2 DFL, 2 Republican and 2 Independents? I
thought after the 2000 election, the Greens achieved major party status in
the state. So, was the Redistricting Commission two members short, or did
the Green Party fail to submit a list? I apologize if this has already been
discussed. I was out of town for the whole first week of April, so I wasn't
following this as closely as I would have liked."
[BRM] The Charter invites lists of nominees from "each major
political party, as defined by Minnesota Statute 200.02, Subdivision 7,
whose candidate for governor or for United States senator in the preceding
election received five (5) percent of the total ballots cast for that office
in the City of Minneapolis." The Greens are a "major political party" under
the referenced statute, because of their Presidential nominee's vote share
in 2000. But the Charter further limits the parties according to the votes
for their nominees for governor and United States senator, excluding the
votes for Presidential candidates, and the Greens do not meet the more
limited definition.
Conor again: "Also, I'm not sure if the timing of the meetings and
the plan proposals was appropriate. The Charter tells us: 'A copy of the
tentative plan shall be published as a legal notice for the public at least
seven (7) days prior to the public hearing on the tentative plan.' I assume
that this requirement was fulfilled by the map appearing on the city web
site. However, I still don't understand how the 'tentative plan' map
appearing on the city web site April 11th, was changed with respect to the
Ward 6 boundary, on the final map released Friday the 12th. Maybe somebody
who was at the public meeting on the 11th can help explain how this change
came about. I know the Commission was working under an extremely tight
timeline, and I hope that changes next time around, but it makes no sense to
me that the tentative plan would be altered, at the last minute, after the
public meeting, without re-publishing a new map and holding another
meeting."
[BRM] This question raises an issue as to the scope of the
notice--that is, whether the tentative plan published seven days in advance
sufficiently resembled the plan eventually adopted so that the original
published notice was sufficient. A notice's scope is usually construed very
broadly so that, as long as the eventual result deals with essentially the
same subject matter or issue as the notice, the notice was sufficient. An
amendment ordinarily does not trigger a need for a new notice; if it did,
there would be a powerful disincentive against even a correction or other
technical change. A totally new plan in which the tentative plan is
unrecognizable, or a radical overhaul that revised essentially every piece
of the tentative plan, might require a new notice. But the changes that the
Redistricting Commission made between the tentative plan and the final plan
probably do not rise to that level.
BRM
Brian Melendez
St. Anthony West (Ward 3)
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