So it appears that the city attorney has rejected (pdf) the Jordan plan based on the fact that one of the majority districts drawn is 61.9% voting age black instead of 62%.
Are you kidding me? A .1% deviation – which could easily be a math error – resulted in the rejection of the plan?
But wait – there’s more.
One of the resources on the city’s redistricting website is the Guide for Local Redistricting (pdf) prepared by the Virginia Division of Legislative Services. From page 26:
Majority-minority districts; influence districts. The cases do not specify an exact percentage required to constitute a majority-minority district as required in a Gingles analysis. The courts conduct a fact-specific inquiry and weigh the facts concerning total population, voting age population, and other factors. No single percentage can be said to be the number needed to create a majority-minority district.
So which of these is correct: the City Attorney or Legislative Services? I don’t know – but I hope to find out shortly.
A couple of questions. If court rulings are used as a reason for ignoring an option, shouldn’t those rulings be referenced, so they could be checked? Next, what’s the rush? Why does council feel the need to make a decision this quickly? With something like this, which will be the basis for voting for 10 years, it seems, if time allows, try to do it right rather than quick!
Tommy, Andy, any thoughts?
Posted by Doug Knack | Monday, June 13, 2011, 6:06 pmThe City Attorney and the Mayor need to read up on recent case law: that is permissible.
Posted by Henry Ryto | Monday, June 13, 2011, 6:11 pmSince when does a majority have to be 62%? Even the US Senate settles for 60.
Posted by Randy Klear | Monday, June 13, 2011, 7:18 pmI haven’t heard back from all of my sources yet. It does appear that we need to see the case law, as one of my sources said he has heard that number tossed around, although he is not familiar with any case that says that.
I did a quick look at just one of the majority-minority districts in the House of Delegates – District 95. According to the map available here, it has a voting age population of 59,017 of which blacks are 35,394. Unless my calculator is broken, that equals 59.97%. So will DOJ throw out the state redistricting plan, too?
EDIT – And the second one I checked – HOD 77 – has black voting age population of 58.78%. (33,997 black, 57,841 total).
Posted by Vivian J. Paige | Monday, June 13, 2011, 7:40 pmAt one time case law held that you couldn’t dilute a minority-majority district, period.
However, SCOTUS has now held that it’s possible to strengthen minority voting in adjacent districts, in this case enabling the drawing of a 4th minority-majority district.
Posted by Henry Ryto | Monday, June 13, 2011, 7:54 pmJust got a call from another source of mine who confirmed no set percentage for voting-age population.
Posted by Vivian J. Paige | Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 11:51 am