Court Ordered Texas Congressional Map is still terribly gerrymandered

Fortunately some members of the minority community are not celebrating the so called "victory" in federal court this past week when a new map was created by federal court to replace the originally submitted, and grossly gerrymandered, Texas Congressional map.   The accepted Congressional Map submitted for approval, and then rejected by the courts, was planC185.  It is viewable here on the Texas District Viewer.  The demographic statistics from planC185 are here. 

If you study the planC185 numbers you will note that there are actually 13 districts wherein minorities are in the majority, contrary to what was printed on most of the news media stories on the originally approved plan. See http://dallasredistricting2011.blogspot.com/2011/12/texas-congressional-redistricting-plan.html .  Some of the news reports were specific in stating that in the current congressional districts, that have been in force for a decade, there are 10 out of 32 districts that are majority minority.  Most of the media was not that careful.  They left the impression that the new map passed by the legislature only created 10 such districts. In Planc185 there are 13 minority majority districts out of 36 districts, which is still terrible!

The new map ordered by the judges, Plan220, can be found here.  It only adds one more district wherein minorities are in the majority.  It is an improvement, but still does not achieve voting rights the U.S. should be proud of on the world stage. Just look at these numbers! This district by district report on the numbers produced by Planc220 shows the packing and fragmenting that was was used in the original map, and was continued in the replacement map.  Texas will still be a state wherein 45% of the population can remain as the majority group in 61% of the districts.  That is the power of gerrymandering.

Notice that half of the 14 districts wherein minorities are in the majority are over 80% minority, meanwhile in the 22 Anglo majority districts there are none with more than 77% Anglo population, certainly proof of the packing of minority districts so that fewer minority candidates can be elected.  Such packing is a central technique in gerrymandering.

The 2010 Census of Texas shows that 55% of the population of Texas is made up of people who are classified as minorities, leaving only 45% who are white, non-Hispanic. Meanwhile we have a map, Planc220, that has been "improved" by the federal court from having 13 out of 36 districts that have minorities in the majority, to having 14 out of 36 (or 39%) which have minorities in the majority. Thus a state that is only 45% Anglo, non-Hispanic, has a redistricting plan that provides 22 districts (or almost 61%) wherein the majority population are Anglo, non-Hispanic.  Is that fair?

Anyone who considers it is justified for 55% of the population to only be majority in less than 39% of the districts may not understand the difference between the voting booth and the redistricting table. The redistricting table is where everyone is counted.  A very different counting should happen at the voting booth. That is where citizenship counts. That is where the right to vote counts. We will not have justice in redistricting until this difference between voting and redistricting is reflected in redistricting. 

Gerrymandering must be identified by functional laws that are enforced!  Compact districts encourage voters to vote. Who benefits by discouraging the general public to vote?

The Redistricting Game

If anyone doubts the critical power in redistricting they should play the free online redistricting game that can be found and played at http://www.redistrictinggame.org/. We must better understand the frightening power that redistricting places in the hands of the map makers. Nothing is wrong with having fun in the process.

The evening of 11/22/11 I attended a very well managed and presented meeting at the Cedar Crest Country Club by the Mayor, several council members, and their staff. It was to share, and solicit from the public, information and perceptions on the directions Dallas is going. Things look very positive. The Paul Quinn students were present with excellent questions. Issues were not solved but presented. It was a very good meeting.

Dallas needs another similar meeting directly focused on the redistricting process recommendations for 2021. The good news is that based on the 11/23/11 Dallas Morning News Editorial, Mayor Rawlings is already working on such recommendations. Now is the time to do that while the experience is fresh on the minds of those who actively participated in the process. Many will certainly have recommendations for improvement. Our Dallas City Council Redistricting process, in spite of how it ended, still started out with one of the best sets of guidelines and procedures in the nation for accepting public input. That must be expanded and continued. Now is the time to make the recommendations for the process to follow in 2021.

Dallas must continue to constantly improve. The Redistricting Game at http://www.redistrictinggame.org/ will explain why redistricting reform must be a part of that improvement.

Proportional Representation reduces redistricting issues in Amarillo, and elsewhere in the U.S.

Everyone involved, with few exceptions, in the redistricting process in Dallas is frustrated with the manipulations and conflicts that are happening in the name of democracy.  The results to date have been terrible! 

Dallas may be able to benefit from an election system used across the world, and in Amarillo Texas. It is described online at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/empower.htm . The title of this article is "How Proportional Representation Can Empower Minorities and the Poor."

Many cities have used various forms of this system to elect city councils and school boards going back 100 years. It avoids the million dollar costs involved with redistricting and the resulting litigation. The residence of candidates is a much less of a critical factor.

After having seen the costs and agony we are enduring here in Dallas, this is certainly an alternative worth considering. The City Council representatives produced would be more concerned about the entire city and not just one small district.

We must have a better form of democracy that more accurately translates the desire of the voter into action. It also helps that the Department of Justice appears to have a record of judging that proportional representation systems meet the requirements of the Voting Rights Act.   It is a system that could have saved Dallas millions of dollars as it appears this redistricting process is headed to court.

Here an another article from the Baltimore Sun last week that gives details about the value of proportional representation:

Fair representation for all Baltimore Sun - Jamie Raskin - Rob Richie - 5 days ago The battle over legislative redistricting in ... grounded in our electoral traditions: proportional representation in a fair ...

Letter Sent 11-10-11 to the Department of Justice

November 10, 2011

T. Christian Herren, Jr.
Chief, Voting Section, Civil Rights Division
United States Department of Justice, Room 7254–NWB
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530.

Re: Comment under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, City Council, Dallas, Texas, file # 2011– 4417

Dear Mr. Herren:

I write with great concern about the gerrymandered Dallas City Council redistricting map that was sent on 10-24-11 to your offices for approval. I'm a recently retired Dallas ISD teacher who has lived in Dallas for 36 years. I've spent most of the past 7 months working as a citizen volunteer providing input in the redistricting process. Here are my concerns:

1. The approved map severely endangers potential black representation by ignoring population movement patterns. While the approved map shows three black minority majority districts according to the 2010 census, these districts are unnecessarily and dangerously weak. Due to the history of black population movement to North Dallas since 2000, the black 50.76% majority that existed 18 months ago in District 7, when the 2010 Census was taken, now almost certainly no longer exists above 50%. Over 20% of the 2000 District 7 black population had been lost by the time of the 2010 Census. There is no indication this black exodus has stopped. This week DISD identified 41 schools with dropping enrollments and in danger of closing. The majority of those schools were in Districts 7 & 4. As of the 2010 Census District 4 had lost 17% of its 2000 black population. Five years from now it is almost certain District 4 will also no longer be over 50% black. These losses are unnecessary! It was proven in wPlan03c submitted by Rawlings that three much stronger, more compact black districts can be created that will easily last the next decade as black minority majority districts. Also, due to the movement of black population to North Dallas, there is now an even stronger black community that remains fragmented between Districts 10, 11, and 13. It could be made into a winnable minority district.
2. The approved map does not represent the Dallas Hispanic Community accurately. The city’s population is over 42% Hispanic, but only 4 of the 14 city council districts, or 29%, in the approved map, have a Hispanic majority population. Also one of those four districts will probably not last 5 years. Due to population movements over the past decade it is safe to predict that District 2 will not remain over 50% Hispanic by 2016. When such dramatic differences are reflected in redistricting, something is wrong. Differences in voting should only be made visible in the voting booth, with election results, not beforehand in a redistricting map! With wPlan03c by Rawlings it is proven that 5, not 4, more compact and stronger Hispanic majority minority districts can be created. An additional Hispanic minority opportunity district can also be created for a 6^th district, an opportunity district, that is 42% Hispanic. With 6 out of 14 districts as potentially winnable Hispanic districts, that makes for potential Hispanic representation in 43% of the 14 city council seats in a town with a population that was 42.35% Hispanic 18 months ago, and is now certainly above 43%.
3. Contrary to guidelines regarding minority representation, white districts disproportionately dominate the approved map. While only 29% of Dallas population is white, 43% of districts, six districts, are white majority districts. Minority communities are fragmented so as to achieve this imbalance. Some people confuse voting with redistricting and therefore speak of citizenship numbers or child population numbers in attempts to justify this type imbalance. Such factors should only be reflected in the voting booth, not at the redistricting table! Yes, there are districts that may be minority majority districts that will be won by non-minority candidates due to the simple fact of heavier white voting in many minority communities. But that is not a factor to be used in redistricting. That happens in the voting booth, where it should. By it's very existence this factor encourages minorities and their children to register to vote as soon as they are able. But such encouragement only happens when non-voters can easily see that their votes can make a difference. Such encouragement only happens when the redistricting process was done justly, with compact districts, and the proper power of the vote is restored, and maintained!
4. Contrary to the guidelines, and the consistent requests from the large majority of speakers at all 10 of the public input meetings, the approved map remains terribly gerrymandered. Community assets are thereby separated from the residents throughout Dallas. The redistricting guidelines approved by the Dallas City Council were followed more closely by the public, who designed and submitted over 20 maps, than they were by either the Commission or the Council itself. Almost all of the publicly created maps were more compact and less gerrymandered than the approved map created by the City Council. The approved map still has over 40 excess miles of boundary lines due to gerrymandering, miles of boundary lines that do not exist in wPlan03c by Rawlings.
5. Contrary to guidelines mandating neutrality as to the address of incumbents, these addresses seemed to drive the redistricting process toward the approved map! Notice the strange arms sticking out to the east from District 3. Frequent statements during council meetings document the importance of council member addresses in the minds of many council members during redistricting. Fortunately these and related statements are recorded.

Please, do not approve the map submitted to your office for approval by the Dallas City Council on 10-24-11. The above are only some of the major reasons it is defective. It is a major setback for the democratic process in Dallas.

After attending all of the public hearings, and all of the Redistricting Commission meetings, I had the good fortune to complete the wPlan03c Map that was then improved and presented to the City Council by Mayor Rawlings. It was the only citizen created map presented to the Council. The wPlan03c map enjoyed popularity with the public and was endorsed by virtually all of the print media in Dallas. If you google “redistricting” and “betzen” there are about 2,000 hits related to this map and these endorsements, including 4 supportive editorials from the Dallas Morning News. This map and these published endorsements were included in the material sent by the city to your offices.

The final wPlan03c version submitted by Mayor Rawlings is compact, with 40 fewer miles of district boundary lines than the approved map you are now considering. By eliminating gerrymandering, and since 71% of the Dallas population is minority, this map provides the strongest minority representation of any map created. It has 8 minority majority districts and 2 strong minority opportunity districts. Thus the potential exists for Dallas, with a 71% minority population, to have 71% of the Dallas City Council, or 10 out of 14 seats, occupied by members of the Dallas minority communities.

However, due to multiple factors, including the wonderfully large families in our Latino community, these percentages may over-represent current voting potential, potential that will certainly grow as these children reach voting age.

The goal in writing now is to document the flaws in the approved map sent to your offices on 10-24-11, and to show what is possible as demonstrated with one map, the wPlan03c map, online at http://www.dallascityhall.com/Redistricting/pdf/Submission/Submission_wPlan03cRawlings_packet.pdf .

Since April I have been maintaining an online record of this redistricting process. It is in a blog at http://dallasredistricting2011.blogspot.com/ . That record may provide information that will help in the critical decisions you are making. It would also be an honor to spend time helping you, or any of your staff, in any way possible to help secure a much more representative map than the one sent to you for consideration by the Dallas City Council.

Thank you for the work you are doing to help our democracy function. It is critical work!

Respectfully,

Bill Betzen
www.StudentMotivation.org
Dallas, Texas
214-957-9739
bbetzen@aol.com

A copy of the above letter was also emailed to vot1973c@usdoj.gov .

Talking Points – Redistricting Letters to Department of Justice

Everyone concerned about the Dallas City Council Redistricting Map approved 10-5-11 must let their concerns be known to the Justice Department by December 12th.  The Justice Department has 60 days from the date they received the map, 10-24-11, to make their decisions.  Do not wait till the last minute to write your letter.  The letter may be addressed as follows, changing the date and content as appropriate, using this address and format as was used by the City of Dallas in their cover letter sent with all the submitted materiel:

============== letter format to Department of Justice =======================

T. Christian Herren, Jr.

Chief, Voting Section, Civil Rights Division
United States Department of Justice
Room 7254–NWB
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530.

Re:  Comment under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, City Council, Dallas, Texas, file # 2011– 4417

November 1, 2011

Dear Department of Justice:

I write with great concern about the gerrymandered Dallas City Council redistricting map that was sent to your offices for approval on 10-24-11.

==========================================

With that entry, the following are ideas for the content of your letter. Copy, edit, and paste as you see fit. Some may not be appropriate for where you live, or make sense for you. Ignore them. Use arguments that mean the most to you. Use arguments that affect your home and where you live. These are only general ideas as to how the Dallas City Council Map approved 10-5-11 is affecting democracy in Dallas.
An email address that may also be used for comments is: vot1973c@usdoj.gov . Details about emailing comments are at http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/misc/contacts_tag1.php .

1. The approved map does not represent the Dallas Hispanic Community accurately. The city’s population is over 42% Hispanic. Only 29% of the 14 city council districts in the approved map have a Hispanic majority population. When such dramatic differences are reflected in redistricting something is wrong. Differences in voting should only be made visible in the voting booth, with election results, not before there is even an election! That is not democracy!
2. Contrary to the guidelines, the map remains terribly gerrymandered. The redistricting guidelines approved by the Dallas City Council were followed more closely by the public who designed and submitted over 20 maps. Almost all of the publicly created maps were more compact and less gerrymandered than the approved map. The approved map, while an improvement over the current map, still has over 40 excess miles of boundary lines due to gerrymandering.
3. Contrary to guidelines mandating neutrality as to the address of incumbents, this was the guideline most aggressively ignored by Dallas City Council. Notice the strange arms sticking out to the east from District 3. Frequent recorded statements during council meetings document the importance of council residence in the minds of many council members during redistricting.
4. Contrary to guidelines regarding minority representation, white districts disproportionately dominate the map. While only 29% of Dallas population is white, 43% of districts, six, are white majority districts. Minority communities are fragmented so as to achieve this imbalance. Voting population and/or citizenship numbers should not figure into these calculations as those factors are counted when actual voting happens. Yes, there are districts that may be minority majority districts that will be won by white candidates due to the simple fact of heavier voting in many white communities. But that is not a factor to be used in redistricting. That happens in the voting booth. Redistricting is only about potential. It is about a potential that is protected by our nation's laws.  Sadly it is also a potential that too often is not realized when a gerrymandering redistricting process does not protect the right to an effective voting process once residents become citizens. That potential must be protected in our democracy.
5. Gerrymandered districts increase the costs to the city for extra meetings and other expenses needed in long, strangely shaped districts.
6. Gerrymandering also handicaps democracy in very practical ways. Campaigning is more expensive. Fewer candidates step forward to serve. The election process is more dependent on campaign donors in strangely shaped districts. People who may not even live in the district become donors when they want to have influence with city council members. Voters are more readily apathetic when their representatives live 10+ miles away, or rarely visit their area. (Dallas city council districts can easily be designed so almost all Dallas residents live within 10 miles of their representative.)
7. The history of population movement over the past decade was virtually ignored in the 10-5-11 approved map. That fact severely endangers potential black representation. While the approved map shows three black minority majority districts according to the 2010 census, due to the history of black population movement to North Dallas since 2000, the black majority in District 7 almost certainly no longer exists above 50%. Remember, the 2010 Census numbers used are already 18 months old so the 50.76% majority is probably gone. Since 2000 over 20% of the District 7 black population has been lost. The District 4 majority is also in danger of being below 50% within 5 years. Since 2000 District 4 had lost 17% of black population. It was proven in other submitted maps that three much stronger, more compact, black districts can be created that will also much more easily last the next decade as black minority majority districts.
8. Due to gerrymandering community assets are being separated from their residents. The fabric of multiple Dallas communities is being decimated. An example occurs in the heart of Oak Cliff where, in the Wynnewood area, neighborhoods are redistricted apart both from each other and from their shopping center. Virtually across the street from Wynnewood Village, Kiestwood neighborhoods are split away from Kiest Park and joined instead with the VA Hospital. The same thing happens to the endangered and fragile Southwest Center Mall. It is at the end of a long arm reaching out from District 8 while across the street is District 3 which covers much more of the area from which customers to the mall live. This deplorable indifference to considering and respecting our communities of interest occurs throughout Dallas.

Make this your personal letter. The above points are only suggestions. 
Please send your letter soon, well before Christmas.  The Department of Justice must know, well within 60 days of the 10-24-11 date that the map was sent, that the people in Dallas are watching.