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2
I N D E X
April 23, 2001
2.19 Presentation by outside legal counsel, initial
assessment regarding need to redistrict
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~! 2.16 Adoption of redistricting schedule t'~',~~~t~(~
2.17 Adoption of criteria to govern development of
redistricting plans # ~~~~zl~
--- Adoption of guidelines for persons submitting
specific redistricting proposals ~ ~,~ ~t~j~
2.18 Role of Citizens Advisory Committee in
redistricting process
Adjourned
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On Monday, April 23, 2001, at 4 p.m., a special meeting
of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in the
Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, Kerrville,
Texas, and the following proceedings were had in open court:
P R O C E E D I N G S
JUDGE HENNEKE: It is 9 o'clock in the
afterrroon on Monday, April '23rd, Year 2001. We will call to
order the recessed special -- regular special session of the
Kerr County Commissioners Court. First of all, I want to
thank everyone who came today, the members of the Citizens
Committee on Redistricting, and we look forward to your
input. We appreciate your participation. I know I've said
it repeatedly, and I mean it sincerely, that our government
is only as good as the help we get from the citizens, and we
want to thank each and every one of you for agreeing to take
the time and Eor taking the time to come and help us out
with this most fundamental responsibility that we have,
which is guaranteeing that we each have the right to have
our vote counted and counted appropriately. So, once again,
thank you all for coming.
At Ltris time, I want to introduce to you our
consultants from Austin. First of all, Mr. Bob Heath, and
Ms. Penny Reddington from trie firm of Bickerstaff, Heath,
et al, who are here to help us with the process of
redistricting. Before we hear their initial assessment, do
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any Commissioners have anything they want to add at this
time?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd like to move.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Eeel free.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that precinct lines,
or --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. Only if 1 can
have Riverhill.
JUDGE HENNEKE: If no one else has anything
to offer at this time, we'll go ahead and get started.
First item for consideration on the formal agenda is Item
Number 14, consider and discuss presentation by outside
legal counsel of the initial assessment regarding the need
to redistrict based on the 2001 census data. Bob, are you
up?
MR. HEATH: Well, actually, I think Penny's
going to start.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay.
MR. HEATH: We're going to do a tag team.
MS. REDDINGTON: If I stand too close here,
I'm going to be ici the light, but I don't want to turn my
back to anyone. Judge, Commissioners, it's a pleasure to be
with you this afternoon. We certainly thank you for giving
us a chance to come down and visit with you and with the
Citizens Advisory Committee. 1 hope we have a chance to
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meet all of you before this afternoon is over. My name is
Penny Reddington. I'm an attorney with Bickerstaff, Heath,
and Smiley, as is Bob Heath, who's one of the named partners
with the firm, and we are here because we have been retained
by the County to work with them on this round of
redistricting.
Every 10 years after the census, numbers come
in. Local governments that are representative in nature,
local governments that elect representative members to a
body, must look at their relative populations among the
precincts and determine whether or not they are out of
balance because of population changes, and determine whether
or not they need to redistrict, and that just means to
redraw their lines such that the -- the population count is
equal or as close to equal as possible in each of the
precincts. You can't move people. You can't cut people up,
so what you have to do is move the lines to accommodate
changes in population growth.
And, there's some interesting aspects to it.
The requirement to equalize the districts is a
constitutional requirement, but there are also some
influences from the Voting Rights Act which are very
important. And the Voting Rights Act, of course, was
enacted to protect the rights of minorities, and the right
of minorities in particular in this case, to participate
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fully in the election process. So, we have done -- our firm
has done this kind of work for a number of years. I think
Bob was involved in redistricting in the 1980's, in 1981
MS. REDDINGTON: -- after the 1970 census.
pencil, and you worked on a county roadmap or something to
do it. As the decades have gone by, it's become a much more
sophisticated process and a much more technologically driven
process. With computers now, we can do a lot to equalize
the population and make sure that minorities are not diluted
or disenfranchised in some manner. So, I have a -- a little
background on the census which I think might be interesting
to you.
There's been a lot of talk about the census
the last couple of years. I'm sure most of you responded to
the census form that was either sent to you in the mail or
to the census person who came to your -- your door, and the
government gets a lot of important data from that. They
also may get some data that some of us thought maybe was
irrelevant and a little bit more detailed than we expected
to -- to be providing. But, there was a lot of talk about
the census, and a lot of talk about how complete the count
would be. There was some question as to whether it would be
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an accurate count, whether people would be overlooked, and
there was talk about what numbers would be used. Would the
local governments be using numbers and the federal
government be using numbers that were adjusted to take
account -- take into account the fact that some people maybe
didn't respond to the census?
As it turned out, we will be using the actual
head count data, which the Census Bureau released to us in
mid-March. Now, we have -- our firm has purchased this
census data. We have spent the last few weeks downloading
it, putting it into a format that's usable for purposes of
redistricting. It's a lot of work. It's very interesting,
but it's somewhat tedious. And, Sob doesn't do it and I
don't do it; we don't actually manipulate the computers a
lot, but it's interesting to see what results come from --
from the analysis of this data, and we're here today to
present those to the Commissioners Court and to you, the
Advisory Committee. So, I'm going to start with this slide
presentation. If you can't see it, we can make some
adjustments. Those of you over here may have a little more
trouble. And, I'll try to stay out of the way here. Now
can you see?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm fine, Penny.
MS. REDDINGTON: Okay. Let me begin here
with the first portion. I'm going to talk about the census
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some of the legal guidelines for redistricting, and then
we're going to talk about the process that we will follow so
that everyone understands how this works. There's kind of a
sequential method of going about doing it. And, then we
will talk about the specific data for Kerr County.
What is redistricting? We11, it's complying
with the constitutional requirement for one person, one
vote. As I said, if we have a representative body, those
members need to represent approximately equal populations.
It's not fair if Precinct Number 1 is very underpopulated,
Precinct Number 3 is very overpopulated. And, who has to do
it? Well, the State Legislature has to do it. They draw
the lines for congressional seats and for their own state
legislative members. County Commissioners are
representative, and so they must do it. If you have a
single-member school district in your county, that district
will need to redraw its lines if they've become -- if the
precincts -- or the districts have become out of balance.
Cities, colleges, water districts, any group that elects
from single-member districts in a representative capacity.
Now, this is just an example of what your
county might look like. This is an abstract example, but I
think this is helpful. After the census, we may discover
that only a few people live in one precinct, while a great
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many more live in another. What triggers actually having to
redistrict? How far out of balance can you be until you
have to redistrict? Well, they've never really -- there's
not really a place where it's written down, where it says
10 percent -- if you're 10 percent out of balance, but the
and we've determined that -- that if a -- if the deviation
is less than 10 percent, it's probably not gong to be
necessary to redistrict. If it's more than 10 percent, it
probably is necessary. We are representing a lot of
had two that do not have to -- have to redistrict. One of
tkiem had grown by about 30 percent, but the growth was equal
in each precinct, almost the same, and so their deviation
was under 10 percent, and that county did not have to --
have to redistrict.
well, how do we -- how do we get the
deviation? What we do is we compare the district with the
greatest population to the district with the least
population. We determine how far they deviate from the
ideal precinct size, which you obtain just by dividing by
four the population of the county, and if it's more than
10 percent, then that would trigger redistricting. And
then, when we finish by redrawing the lines, we have equal
populatiurrs. Now, as you know, the census day was actually
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April 1st, 2000. It's like a snapshot was taken of the
United States on that day. The number of people living in
this county were enumerated, and the release of the data,
which is public law -- it's called a PL94-171 data. That's
the census data. It was released in mid-march.
Now, we get the data in a computerized
format, and it breaks it down by block level. And, that's
census block, not city block. Although in a city, one city
block may be a census block or census tract. Out in a rural
area, maybe a whole section of land, 640 acres, or a large
area may be a census block, because there would not be as
many people. We also get the total population numbers for
the county. We get the voting age population percentage.
We get a breakdown by race and by ethnicity, and those are
the numbers that we then use to pull together to come up
with the numbers that fit this county and each precinct in
this county.
Now, we utilize the total population when
we're trying to determine issues concerning one person, one
vote. We use the total population. But when we're talking
about voting rights issues, there's another figure that's
very important, and that is the voting age population, the
percentage of people in a precinct who are of voting age.
It doesn't mean that they're registered; it doesn't mean
that they're eligible to register, except that they are of
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the right age to register to vote. In other words, they may
you were the one who designated your race. No one came to
you and said, oh, you're this or you're that. They asked
you what you thought your racial background or makeup was,
so you're the one who filled in that blank. You made that
decision about yourself, and possibly about your family.
And, people were able to say that they belong to more than
one race. In other words, a mixed-race background, you
were also asked to say whether or not you were Hispanic or
non-Hispanic.
This is the way the Justice Department
Bureau asks about. The Justice Department, of course, is
responsible for enforcing the Voting Rights Act, and so we
have taken the data about your -- that we receive from your
county and put it into a format that is like this format
that the Justice Department recognizes and uses. And, you
can see that some of these races are not going to be
applicable in your county. There just will not be many
people here -- there may be a handful, but there won't be
many people here in Kerr County who are of Pacific Islander
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descent, for example. There may be some American Indians.
There will be some Asian people, of Asian background, but
there won't be the numbers that you might find in a more
Now, if you designated yourself as Hispanic,
you're going to be categorized as Hispanic, no matter what
other race you designate. If you designate yourself as a
single race, that's what you're going to be categorized as.
That's -- that goes without saying; that's pretty obvious,
but we thought we needed to put that in there. If you say,
though, that you belong to a single-minority race and the
white race, you will be counted as part of that minority
I race category. So, if you say that you're black and white,
you will be designated as being black. If you say that
you're Asian and white, you'll be designated as being part
of the Asian category. And then there's some other
multiple -- if you list two minority races, say, black and
Asian, then you're listed as being in a multiple -- other
multiple race category. That's not -- that won't be very
many people.
Now, as the County goes about its
redistricting in the next few months, what they do can be
affected by some other things that are going on. I'm sure
you've been seeing in the newspaper that the Texas
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Legislature is knee-deep in redistricting, and there's a lot
rural areas, and there are a great many incumbent state
legislators who are going to find that they are paired with
other state legislators who are incumbents, and they're
going to have to run against one another, and this is going
to be very traumatic and very difficult for them. And, they
are struggling right now with how they're going to draw the
lines for the legislative districts in Texas. In addition,
if you have a city that elects from single-member districts,
and that city is more than 10,000 in population -- and I
believe, Judge, is that -- is that the case here now in
Kerrville?
(Judge Henneke nodded.)
MS. REDDINGTON: Okay. Then those lines, as
well as the legislative lines, can affect what the County
does. The County may have to come back in later -- and the
County Clerk knows about this -- may have to come back in
later and adjust its voting precinct lines to accommodate
these legislative lines or these city council lines, and we
will -- we'll be working with you to accomplish that. But,
you think you have it all done and you have it all perfect,
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and then you get word that the Legislature has decided to
adjust for that. So, while we hope the process will be over
quickly, there will be some things that could cause it to be
delayed a bit. The Legislature also could be involved in
Now, I'm going to turn it over to Bob, and
Things are very different; it's a very different
atmosphere now, and I think you'll find this interesting. I
think it's an interesting aspect of this. Bob?
MR. HEATH: There is -- when we look at the
legal issues in doing redistricting, as Penny said, we start
out with the proposition that, under the Constitution of the
United States, after a case called Reynolds vs. Simms, which
was decided the '60's, districts have to be equal, or
relatively so. Actually, I said Reynolds, which was the
first case that really said one person, one vote. The case
that said that county commissions and local governments
generally are covered is Avery vs. Midland County, a case
coming out of Midland, Texas, involving commissioners
courts. That's the one for the entire nation that says
local governments have to be to population. So, the first
thing we're going to do is talk about -- or make sure in our
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redistricting that the Commissioners' precincts are roughly
equal population. J.P. precincts are not representative
bodies; they don't have to be of equal population, but in
this case, they correspond to the Commissioners' precincts,
is the Department of Justice's role in preclearance. And,
another thing -- or changes in legal standards for liability
that are different today than they were 10 years ago, we'll
be talking about those. The first thing is preclearance
under the Voting Rights Act. What's the Department of
Justice going to do? What role do they play? Well, the
first thing you have to understand is that after the Civil
Rights Act -- or the Voting Rights Act of 1965, covered
states -- and Texas became a covered state effective 1972,
so changes -- voting changes made in Texas after 1972 have
to be approved either by a 3-judge District Court sitting in
the District of Columbia, or by the Department of Justice.
Now -- and you have to do that before you can
do it. Before you change the voting precincts, you have to
go and get a Good Housekeeping seal of approval from the
Department of Justice or from the District Court. As a
practical matter, it's the Department of Justice. I read
something that in the first 25 or 30 years or whatever of
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the Voting Rights Act, there have been 55 preclearance cases
filed in the District Court of the District of Columbia.
Justice. That's what everybody does. That's what we'll ao.
But, what they're going to be looking at --
and there are four things, generally, that -- that are at
issue: One person, one vote; we talked about that. Voting
Rights Act, Section 5; that's what the Department of Justice
will be talking about or looking at. Voting Rights Act,
Section 2; we'll talk about that in a minute. And Shaw vs.
Reno, which has to do with the limited role of race. The
Department of Justice is going to be looking at the second
of those, which is Section 5. To get preclearance, to get
approval by the Department of Justice, Kerr County is going
to have to show that the proposed election changes -- and,
in this case, we're talking about changes in
precincts, justice precincts, and perhaps ch.
precinct lines and perhaps polling places --
proposed changes do not have the purpose and
the effect of denying or abridging the right
Purpose or effect. We didn't mean for it to
to vote, and it doesn't do it.
Commissioner
~nges in voting
that those
will not have
to vote.
deny the right
And, what happened is, in the past, in the
19yU's, before the Department of Justice used the Section 5
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review process to maximize the number of minority districts,
if you could have drawn two minority districts, but you only
drew one, they'd corne back and say, "We don't think that's
right. You have to draw two. Come back with two, and then
we'll approve you." And, in Miller vs. Johnson, 1995, the
Supreme Court said no, you can't maximize. The standard is
retrogression. That is, has the change caused the
jurisdiction to go backwards in terms of minority voting
rights? Are minorities worse off under the new plan than
they were under the old plan? So, it's a backsliding
standard. Are you backsliding? And that's what the
Department's role is going to be this time. They cannot
condition Section 5 approval on compliance with the Section
2 standard. Section 2 says you can't discriminate against
minority groups. They can't use that standard. If -- if a
plan has a discriminatory effect, even though it's no worse
than it was before, it's not retrogressive; it's okay under
Section 5.
Section 2 talks about having a discriminatory
retrogressive effect, and that was in this case called
Bossier Parish Number 1. They didn't say enough then, so
they said it again in Bossier Parish Number 2. That case
went back, got decided again in the District Court, came
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back to the Supreme Court, and they talked about the
purpose. If you'll recall, we talked about you can't have
the purpose or effect of denying or abridging the right to
vote. Bossier Parrish 1 talked about effect; 2 talks about
And, the Department said, "Well, we can look
at these discriminatory issues and these maximization
issues, because if you're not doing all that you can or if
you are adopting something that is discriminatory, then even
if it's not a retrogressive effect, even if you're not
backsliding, it has the purpose of discriminating. You have
the bad purpose, and we can reject a plan on that basis."
And the Department said no, only if it is a purpose to move
backwards. Doesn't move backwards, doesn't have the purpose
of moving backwards. So, that's what the Department -- or
what the Supreme Court has said the Department of Justice
has to do, and it's much more limited standards than they
have previously used.
So, right now, a plan can't be retrogressive.
It can't reduce minority strength or have the purpose of
retrogressing -- of reducing minority strength. You measure
retrogression against the benchmark, which is the last
legally enforceable plan, which is generally the last
precleared plan. So, in our case, it will be the plan that
was passed in 1991 and that we use today. And you look at
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that benchmark plan against the 2000 census, PL94-171 --
that's the specific name of the type of census data that we
use in redistricting. So, we take the existing plan, we
take the new census, It wasn't -- that plan wasn't drawn
under the new census, but we have to take what we have, and
so we look at the percentages and the way that plan treats
minorities under the existing population figures, and that's
our benchmark, and we're going to try not to backslide from
that.
Sometimes you have to backslide a little.
District's underpopulated, and you have -- you know, let's
say you have a 50 percent minority population -- voting age
population in a district, but the district's underpopulated.
There are no more minorities to put in. You've got to put
people in to get to one person, one vote, so you look to see
if a fairly drawn alternative plan could ameliorate or
prevent retrogression. In our example, we've got to put
non-minorities in. The minority percentage is going to come
down; it's going to look like it's retrogressive. The
standard is, could we have done something to prevent that?
And iL the people aren't there, you can't do it. The burden
is on the County to show that we couldn't do any better. We
have tkie burden under Section 5.
Now, one of the things that may happen is
Section 2 -- and I mentioned earlier about that -- is a
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standard that says you can't discriminate. That's much
broader than not retrogressing. Retrogressing says you
can't go backwards; you can't be any worse. You can have
discriminatory plans that are not retrogressive, but Section
2 says you can't discriminate. Any person who is affected
adversely and who's protected by the Voting Rights Act can
bring a suit, so you have suits brought by individuals under
Section 2. The Department of Justice may bring a suit. I
think one thing that's going to happen, as the Department of
Justice role has been reduced and minimized, is we're going
to have more suits brought under Section 2, including suits
brought by the Department of Justice, because before, the
Department of Justice would say, "This plan violates Section
2; we're not going to preclear it under Section 5." Supreme
Court said you can't do that. That's not the standard. Now
they have to approve it under Section 5, and then turn
around and sue you under Section 2. So, we don't want to
violate Section 2 or Section 5, but our first hurdle is
Section 5.
Now, the second issue I want to talk about
here is some changes -- we've talked about this before -- in
Section 2. You can't have the purpose or effect of reducing
-- you can't discriminate. You can't reduce the opportunity
of a protected minority or racial group to participate in
the electoral process and to elect candidates of choice.
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Doesn't mean that people have to -- a group has to elect or
be able to elect. They have to have the opportunity. And,
basically, it's a nondiscrimination standard. And, as a
practical matter, what it means is that you can't pack or
fracture minority voting, extra strength. Let me see. The
packing is where you take all the minorities -- and let's
say African Americans as an example, and there are very few
Afrir_an Americans in Kerr County. But, let's say in the
city that you have a big block of African Americans. You
put every single one, or as many as you can cram into a
single district, so it's a 90 percent African American
district.
Now, they certainly have the opportunity to
elect candidates of their choice. They've got 90 percent of
tYie potential voters. On the other hand, if you want to
reduce their potential voting strength, that's a way to do
it, 'cause you put them all in one district, and they just
cancel each other out. Whereas if you had drawn a 50 or
60 percent African American district, then those other 30,
90 percent, whatever it happens to be, could have an
influence in some other district and their votes would count
more. So, that's one way you can reduce people's voting
strength, is by packing them so that it's very -- you know,
almost exclusively a single-race district.
The other thing is you can't fracture, and
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this is sort of the opposite of packing. We've got our
compact minority group, and you can put them in a district
and they could control the district; maybe 50 percent,
55 percent, 60 percent of a district. But, you come through
and you chop them in two and you put half here and half
~ there; they don't have any power in either district. Can't
I
do that. Those are the things you have to avoid.
So, in 1991 we had two things we had to worry
about, the things we've been talking about: Section 5, you
can't retrogress; Section 2, you can't discriminate, and
that's really all we had to be concerned about. And then
you had a case out of North Carolina called Shaw vs. Reno,
and this is the Shaw vs. Reno district, the 12th
Congressional District in North Carolina. If you look at
this yellow district, that runs about 165 miles. And, I'm
trying to remember -- I think I-87 is the name of the road,
but I -- I may have the interstate highway number wrong, but
it runs largely along the interstate highway. Sometimes
iL's no wider than the right-of-way of the highway;
sometimes even less than that. In fact, there are a couple
of places where it comes down to a single point; it has no
width at all.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Bob, that looks like
my precinct.
MK. HEATH: It does not. I've seen your
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precinct. It doesn't look anything like it.
I COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's very similar to
that.
MR. HEATH:	Yours isn	't 165	miles	long.
COMMISSIONER	GRIFFIN:	Wait	till	we get
through with it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, wait a week.
MR. HEATH: But, if you look at District 6,
it's cut into three pieces by that. And, as I say, there
are at least two places where it comes to a single point,
and that really bothered the Supreme Court. That case went
up, was decided in 1993. Actually, I happened to be at the
Supreme Court the day that case was argued, and Robinson
Everett, who was the plaintiff's lawyer for the Shaw
plaintiffs, had a map, this map up there. And, I tell you,
he just referred to that all the time he was back there.
I'm sure the Court was getting a little tired of it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Bob, can I ask a
question before you leave this? What is the difference
between this and gerrymandering?
MR. HEATH: Well, this is gerrymandering, and
it's what -- this is what we call racial gerrymandering,
because what this is is a district drawn overwhelmingly on
the -- on the basis of race. And, essentially, what's
happening is you're picking up clumps of black voters that
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are widely separated. Some are rural, some are urban and so
forth, and the shape of the district is governed pretty
exclusively by race. Now, Shaw is a controversial opinion.
Every
Last week it was 9/5. One of the -- the five switched to
the four, which sort of drew the line.
And, we're going to see if we -- at some
difference. 13ut, anyway, in Shaw, that changed the law,
because before we had those first two things, which were
what we had in 1991: Can't violate Section 5, can't violate
Section 2. No retrogression, no discrimination. And, now
so, is the race -- is race a narrowly -- is the plan a
narrowly tailored means of addressing the compelling
governmental interest? And, the effect of that -- well,
I'm -- if I can go back, before, in 1991, when I'd qo in and
talk to a commissioners court, I'd say, "You've got to worry
about the Voting Rights Act, and that's really all that's
out tkiere. One person, one vote, and here's what you have
to do to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Anything on
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Now, for commissioners courts, it may not
have been easy, sometimes politically or whatever,
practically, to get on this side of the line, but anyway,
you had lots of options. You still have that line. You
still have the Voting Rights Act. Now have you Shaw vs.
Reno coming the other way and saying, "But you can't use
race as a predominant consideration." Voting Rights Act,
you have to consider race. Race can't be predominant. And
this little area in between my hands is what's permissible
now. So, under Shaw vs. Reno, race can't be the predominant
factor in the redistricting process to the subordination of
a traditional district.
Essentially, they felt -- you think back to
that picture that we just saw. Compactness, continuity,
those sorts of traditional districting principles went out
the window, and we're subordinated to race. Bizarrely
shaped districts like that one we saw are not
unconstitutional, per se. It's okay to have a bizarrely
bizarre shape, but they're not necessarily illegal. If race
is the predominant consideration, the plan still may be
permissible if a race is narrowly tailored -- or the plan is
narrowly tailored to address a compelling governmental
interest, such as compliance with the Voting Rights Act.
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And, if -- we're going to find that a plan is narrowly
tailored if it uses race no more than is necessary. So, we
can use race, we can consider it as a predominant
consideration if we have to do so to comply with the law,
but we have to use it no more than is necessary.
One of the ways we do this is take -- we
adopt redistricting criteria, and that's something we're
going to recommend to the Court that it do. Some of the
sort of redistricting criteria that we suggest -- and these
are things that are traditional districting principles, so
~ that if do you these and if you pay attention to them,
you're not going to subordinate traditional districting
principles; you're going to be using them. You're going to
be considering them along with the considerations that you
have to do to comply with the Voting Rights Act. We're
going to use identifiable boundaries, something the people
can understand and know where the boundaries are. it's not
going to be something that the people can't understand. You
know, maybe a highway, a river, a creek, something that is
understandable and identifiable.
We may say, okay, we want to maintain
communities of vicinity in neighborhoods; we don't want to
split these communities up where we don't have to. A normal
one is using whole voting precincts. In a county the size
of Kerr, you really can't do that, because your voting
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precincts are so big compared to the size of the
commissioner precincts. You move a whole voting precinct
and it's going to be too many people; it's going to throw
you out of balance. But, where we can't use a whole voting
place, where we can have a sufficient number of voters to
make it practical.
For example, in Harris County, because of the
bizarre lines that were drawn 10 years ago for state
representative and state senate and congressional districts,
they went from something over 500 voting precincts in Harris
County -- huge county, lots of and lots of voting precincts.
But, they went from 600, because of all these weird and ugly
and bizarre lines, to 1,300, because you can't have more
than one state representative district in a polling -- in a
voting precinct, or one commissioner precinct or so forth.
And, when these lines all started intersecting, you had to
draw lots of precincts. There are plenty of precincts in
Harris County, or were in 1993, that didn't have anybody in
it. There were highway intersections that were precincts.
There were parts of streets, you know, like one line went
down the left side of the street, another went down the
right side of the street, so the middle of the street was
the voting precinct. Because, you know, you had to use that
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area; you had to put it somewhere.
When they had a runoff in one of these very
bizarrely-shaped districts, because they didn't pay
attention to what the voting precincts were going to look
like, the election administrator left -- and I forget the
exact number, but it's something like 10 or 12 voting
precincts out of the election, 'cause -- didn't realize they
were there. And, you almost had to get a magnifying glass
to find out. I think very few, if any, people live there;
didn't make any substantial difference. Didn't change the
results, or wouldn't have. But, you don't want to get in
that situation. You want your precincts to make sense.
Typically, you're going to base your plan on
existing precincts. That's what normally happens. You
don't have to do it that way, but you have precincts where
people have been serving -- the Commissioners have been
serving the people, J.P.'s have been serving, and so
typically you start with that as a starting point. You're
going to file precincts of relatively equal size. The
Constitution requires this. That's certainly a traditional
redistricting principle, one that's required. We want
districts that are compact and contiguous, so that they
don't run all over everywhere and they do touch one another.
Typically, you keep the existing Commissioners in their
precincts.
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MS. REDDINGTON: Except Commissioner Baldwin;
MR. HEATH: Right now, you don't have to
Court and other courts. And, in fact, what has happened
over the years is that Commissioners and their constituents
have developed relationships and bonds, and there's
something to be said for keeping that.
And, finally, not last but not least, but
certainly among these, we're going to make sure we have a
plan that complies with the Voting Rights Act. Maybe a
narrowly tailored plan, but we're going to comply with the
Voting Rights Act. We're going to do all these at the same
time so that we're complying with the Voting Rights Act, and
if we do all of these together and keep everything in
balance, we can comply with the Voting Rights Act and comply
with Shaw vs. Reno.
Now, I'm not going to go through here -- this
is -- I'm just going to skip through, 'cause I've sort of
done this; we've talked about what some of these things are.
And, to get to North Carolina, where we had -- that was our
-- now, remember our original one? That one's a silhouette
of it there. And, where they are now is something closer to
that, and that was upheld by the Supreme Court just this
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last week. Now, they're still putting blacks in
predominantly black districts; I think it's 47 percent
black. It elects a black congressman, Melvin Watt. It is
a -- but it's one that is not the same sort of bizarre
shape. It's not as bizarre, and it's something that the
Supreme Court felt was permissible.
Let me give you a little -- something a
little closer to home. This is one of my favorites, and it
is because I've worked with this a lot. I was not involved
in this particular suit, which is the Texas congressional
districts, but I have represented jurisdictions in the same
area where we're comparing our districts to those. The top
is the congressional districts in Harris County, Texas,
drawn by the Legislature in 1991. The red district is a
predominantly Hispanic district. The light green district
is a predominantly black district. And, that went to the
Supreme Court; the case is Bush vs. Vera, and the Supreme
Court said that's unconstitutional. There's nothing compact
about that. The more you blow that up, the worse it looks.
On a small scale, it sort of pushes together and looks more
compact. The bigger it is, the more you see all the zigs
and zags.
And, just as a story, back in 1991 or so, or
'92, when we had our computer and our redistricting
software -- and we had a different software system at that
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time, because computers were not as advanced, software
wasn't advanced. But, we lust had all the problem in
manufacturer. We said, "We're having a real problem. Can
you help us?" And they said, Well, by any chance, are you
trying to load the 18th or 29th Congressional District of
Texas? Or the 30th, which happens to be in Dallas. We
said, "Well, as a matter of fact, we are." That's exactly
what our problem was. He said, "The machine won't take it."
restrictive.
So, what happened is the Supreme Court
overturned that, came down, and the Court drew the plan.
And, that's the plan they drew, and you can see that it's
much more compact. But, it's -- I was trying to see what
the next slide is. Let me tell you what this is. The Court
drew this to be a predominant -- that's to be predominantly
minority districts. The red one, as you recall, was
predominantly Hispanic. The Hispanic population in Houston
generally runs, like, right through here. The light green
one is African American. You have African American
population here, then up here, which is 5th -- looks like
shadow pictures -- and some over in this area, which is
particularly the Acres Homes area. This -- and we called it
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a motor boat propeller -- is predominantly black. If you
look at the division between 50 percent and above black
areas, 50 percent and above Hispanic areas, it runs right
there, and it runs right over here and here. And the Court
knew that and very deliberately drew that to be
predominantly black and -- and predominantly Hispanic
districts, but they just didn't go to that sort of extreme.
So, you can draw a predominantly minority
district; it's okay. The Court felt that it was
appropriate. And this is -- now, this is not -- every
member of that court was appointed by a Republican President
of the United States. Very conservative court. It's a
3-judge Federal District Court in Harris County, but they
deliberately drew minority districts, but you don't go to
that extreme. Interestingly, here -- you know, that's about
the same level of zigs and zags and bizarreness and so
forth. Nobody did anything about that. They really weren't
I challenged. But, that's Tom Delay's district. This is Ken
Bentsen's district. This is a political gerrymander. It's
okay. Not a racial one. Court didn't have a problem with
it.
We said earlier that narrowly tailoring a
plan means that we're going to use race no more than is
necessary. What we want to do to have a plan and to make
our plan work and to make the process work, so that at the
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end of the process we're going to get precleared with the
Department of Justice, we're going to avoid Section 2 and
the Shaw vs. Reno problem, is we're going to plan ahead.
We're going to build a record. We're going to keep track of
everything we do. We're going to be aware of our legal
obligations and responsibilities, and that's one of the
purposes of the talk today. We're going to adopt criteria
that reflects additional redistricting principles, including
consideration of race to the extent required to meet
obligations under the Voting Rights Act. We're going to pay
attention to our criteria when we're drawing the plan. Any
-- if a citizen submits a plan, we're going to consider it
and evaluate it against the criteria. Our own plan, we're
going to evaluate it against the criteria, see how well it
stacks up.
When we finally come out with a plan,
criteria, make a written report on it. We're going to make
sure that analysis is furnished to the governmental body
before it votes on the plan. It's not going to be an
afterthought. It's not going to be after the fact. It's
beTOre the Commissioners vote. We want to avoid truly
bizarre-shaped districts. And that's going to, we think,
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doing what we need to do to comply with the Voting Rights
Act and avoiding excessive consideration of race that gets
us into trouble under Shaw vs. Reno. As I said, it's a
tightrope. Can't lean too far one way, can't lean too far
the other. So, the steps in how we go through it, Penny is
going to talk with you.
MS. REDDINGTON: You're getting a real crash
course in redistricting. I hope that you're all awake. I'm
going to --
AUDIENCE: Glad we're not in Harris County.
MS. REDDINGTON: That's true. I hope it will
be better here. I'm going to move fairly fast through this,
but the point I'm going to try to emphasize as I go along is
that this is very much a step-by-step process. If we're
going to do it the right way, we're going to follow the
steps in the right order so that when we finish, we have a
product, we have a plan that meets the needs of the County,
but that also satisfies the Voting Rights Act and the
constitutional one person, one vote requirement. Anyone can
jump up and draw a plan, but we want plans that are -- plans
we can evaluate fairly, plans that really fit the needs of
the County.
So, here are some of the steps that we're
going to go through, and just to give you an idea of what a
short period of time we have, I want to show you this
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timeline. And I'm going to just pop all of these things up
and -- up here first, because it takes a lot of time if you
don't, and then give you an idea of how little time we have.
Is that the last one, or did I go too far?
MR. HEATH: That's it.
MS. REDDINGTON: Okay. Now, we've got the
census data in March, mid-March. We've been -- we've been
working, though, for several months to develop our teams of
redistricting attorneys, to develop our support staff who
handle the computers, and the paralegal and secretarial
support that we need to be out on the road almost every day
working with counties to get this done. We got the data in
March. Here it is in April, and we are making the
presentation of the initial assessment to this county.
We're trying to give you an overview of the legal process
and the legal -- of the process and the legal issues. We're
going to ask the Court today to adopt some criteria and
rules to govern the process, and we hope within about a
month to be back with a first draft plan for the
Commissioners Court and the Advisory Committee and any
members of the public who are interested to look at and
evaluate. It probably won't be perfect. It would be
wonderful if it made everyone happy, but it will be a
starting point. It will be a place to begin, and we can get
some very meaningful input at that time.
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We will then, a few caeeks later, have a
public hearing. This will be a formal public hearing; we'll
have a court reporter again. It will be a public hearing on
the plan with any adjustments or alterations that we may
the public, should there be individuals or groups who would
like to provide proposed plans to the Commissioners Court
for their consideration, but we need to set a cutoff date
for that, because we are looking at a very strict deadline
here. We would like to have the County adopt its final plan
by early August, preferably August 1st. That will then give
us a month to -- to put the submission together that we will
send to the Department of Justice, the submission which asks
for preclearance from them for our new plan.
They take a while to do their work. They are
covered up with submissions from -- from local governments
all over the country, and so they automatically have 60 days
from the time they receive your plan until they have to
respond. However, they can buy themselves another 60 days
by waiting until about the 55th day that they've got your
plan, and then cal]ing and saying -- or sending a letter and
saying, "We need more information. We just need to clarify
some things; we want a little more information." So, we're
going to be a little bit pessimistic and we're going to
assume that the Justice Department will use their entire 1Z0
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days to evaluate the Kerr County plan and decide whether or
not it will receive preclearance. It's important to have
that plan precleared, because we want it in place in time
for the primaries for the elections for people who are
wanting to file and run for office; they need to know where
they live, what precinct they live in and what offices they
might want to run for.
So, we are -- we have this what I call
"drop-dead" deadline of, really, October 1st that we must
have the -- have the plan in to the Justice Department. We
would prefer to give ourselves a little bit more time; you
never know what can happen. So, September 1 is really when
we need to have the plan in, the submission in. So, we're
asking the Court to consider acting by August lst, if they
can. So, that's our window of opportunity. And every other
local government in the state and in the south that elects
from single-member districts, representatives, is looking at
the same timeline. So, that's why we're all so busy.
Now, your County also -- your County Clerk
also may want to make some changes to election precincts,
and we'll work with your County Clerk on that should that be
necessary. My guess is that you may have some precincts
right now that are not working well for you. You may have
some that are a little overpopulated, a little
underpopulated, you may have some lines that aren't really
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clear. So, there may be some adjustments that you would
want to make, even if we weren't doing redistricting. But,
because we're going to be tweaking those election precincts
some, perhaps, ourselves, we may want to do it all at one
time, so we'll work with you on that. And the timeline's a
little different, but it's the same idea; it needs to be
done this fall.
So, we have been working to conform the
initial assessment for Kerr County. We've been looking at
the data, calculating the deviation. And, while we're here
today, we want to have a little time to talk about some --
maybe some historical issues that are important in this
county, some things that maybe have led to you having the
kind of lines that you have now, some problems that may have
become apparent over the last decade, things that you think
we should know about. We don't know your county as well as
you do. We don't know your county very well at all,
although I know Bob has worked here some, and I like to
visit here. But, we don't know your issues the way you do,
and so we have to look to you and to the members of the
~ Commissioners Court for guidance.
We're going ro suggest in just a moment that
the Court adopt some, basically, redistricting criteria.
There may be other things -- we think we've pretty well
covered the waterfront on these, but there may be something
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more that the Court would like to include. I won't go over
all of that again. And then we want to adopt -- we want the
Court to adopt some guidelines for the public, should the
public want to submit plans. The plans really need to be
written. It's almost impossible to verbally describe a plan
So, we
written, and require that the plans show the total
population of the county, and for each precinct, and the
voting age population of minorities for each precinct,
because that's what the Justice Department looks at. And,
if that's one of the standards that the County's plan should
meet, then that's one of the standards that the public's
plan should meet as well. And, it shouldn't draw -- be a
entire county. You can draw a perfect precinct, but the
impact you might have on the rest of the county would mean
that you couldn't draw three other precincts that would
work. And then we would ask that it be -- conform to the
Now, we're going to do our best, and I know
the Judge and Commissioners are going to work with us on --
on this. And, I think today is a good example. Our
meetings are going to be public meetings. We're going to
provide public notice and in a timely manner for those
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information to them. And, someone from the news media just
asked me if we had an extra copy of the assessment for the
media. We don't; we brought these for the Commissioners,
available, and we're happy to do that for you. It's a --
this is not something that people really know a lot about,
and so it's very important to give the background
information as well. The Court may, through letters to
members of the public, invite them to meetings, or send out
newsletters about this. And we'll also -- I know they're
going to extend personal invitations, as they have to each
of you, to participate in the process. And you may xnow
someone who would be interested who would want to come to
one oT the public meetings, and so, take it upon yourselves,
if you would, to include those people.
We're going to ask the Court to set some
target dates for the presentation of the -- of the plans,
for the public plans that are going to be submitted. We
have to have a cutoff at some point, and set a target date
for adopting the plans, which we're hoping would be around
-- around August 1, and then a target date for submission of
the plan. Well, it's obvious we're going to -- we're going
to try to draw plans, take note of the legal requirements.
We will have public hearings. We're going to look at these
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plans and analyze them carefully and present that
information to the Court before it votes on the plans. And
Department, we will be available to help the Court respond
to any questions that they might receive from the Justice
Department. Sometimes they will just get a phone call.
Sometimes some of you -- and your names will all go in to
the Justice Department. You may also get a phone call from
the Justice Department. They'll want to know whether it was
a fair and open process, whether you were able to
participate, and so you'll be in a position to respond, and
we can help with that if anyone should need that.
Now, the question always comes up about
justice precincts; that's the J.P./constable precincts.
They are not technically representative districts like the
commissioners courts, the Commissioners' districts. They
are not representatives. The Justice of the Peace is a
judicial official. The constable is a law enforcement
official. They're not representative, so the one person,
one vote standard does not apply to them. They don't
represent groups of individuals, and so that doesn't count
for them. They can come from districts that are of
different sizes of population. But, if we make changes to
those precincts -- and I'm assuming that we will, because
their lines conform to the Commissioners' precincts -- those
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modifications will require Justice Department approval -- or
preclearance.
Now, we're going to talk about your county
and your numbers. Judge, I don't know if you want to take a
break; we've been sitting here for an hour, or if you want
to us to move on. It's up to you.
COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Press on.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Charge.
MS. REDDINGTON: Press on, okay.
MR. HEATH: This is the last piece.
MS. REDDINGTON: Yeah, this is it, and this
won't take very long.
JUDGE HENNEKE: We'll do this module, we'll
leave some time for questions, take a break, and then come
back and we'll work on criteria, scheduling, and
requirements.
MS. REDDINGTON: That's good
MR. HEATH: This is -- if you have -- I'm
sorry we don't have it for every single person, but if you
have the book, it's maybe a little clearer than on the
screen, but here's the current Commissioner precincts, and
those are the ones that were drawn back in the '90's. And
we have -- J.P.'s are the same.
MS. REDDINGTON: We need to point out which
one's which.
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MR. HEATH: Sure. The precincts -- yeah.
Want to do that?
MS. REDDINGTON: I think I can do that
without getting in the way too much. This is -- let's see.
MR. HEATH: Four is down there.
MS. REDDINGTON: This is Precinct 4; it's the
largest. It's Commissioner Griffin's precinct. And then --
let's see, I have to look at my chart here. This is
Precinct 1, this pink one.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The long, narrow one.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The gerrymandered
one.
MS. REDDINGTON: That's Commissioner
Baldwin's precinct. Then, up here in the corner is 3, and
then this is 2. How'd y'all come up with this numbering
system? Jumping all around.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Just lucky, I guess.
MS. REDDINGTON: If you can see the little
chart here, that might help.
MR. HEATH: So, the first thing we do is --
and perhaps the most important thing we do in determining if
we have to redistrict is, how many people live there? Ten
years ago, they were all presumably within a 10 percent
deviation. They are not any more. Any guesses as to which
is the largest and the smallest? You know, here is the --
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the demographics. As you can see, the largest district is
District 4, which is the one on the western end of the
county, Commissioner Griffin's. It's about 10 percent -- or
7 percent -- 7 and a quarter percent over. Number 3, which
is on the eastern end of the county, is about 10 percent
under, and that's Commissioner Letz' precinct. Number 1,
Commissioner Baldwin's, is just about right. That shape
works just fine. And the other, Number 2, Commissioner
Williams', is about 5 and a half percent over. So, we want
to get the -- we have a deviation of 17.43 percent, a total
deviation. From the largest to the smallest, plus 7 to
minus 10, ends up at 17.93. Our average precinct size, the
ideal is about 10,900, and that's where we want to end up.
We can be a little over, we can be a little under. So, we
need to be within 10 percent, top to bottom.
So, basically, what that means is that
Commissioner 4 -- Commissioner Precinct 4 is going to have
to lose population. Commissioner Precinct 3 is going to
have to gain. Two's going to have to lose a little. One
may have to gain or lose a little, as well. And, as --
let's see. This is the same data, except it shows all the
different groups. But, as you can see, the others are so
small Lhat they're not particularly significant. For
example, Hawaiian Pacific Islander; there's 16 of those in
the county. There are 12 other, 154 American Indians, so
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forth.
Let's go back for a minute and look at
minority population, because that's one of the things that
we want to be aware of, because that's setting our benchmark
for Section 5 preclearance. And, the more relevant of the
two charts there is the bottom one, because that's voting
age population. You recall, we're looking at total
population at the top. That's everybody. The bottom, we're
looking at voting age population, persons 18 years of age
and above, 'cause those are the only people that are
potentially eligible to register and to vote. Precinct 3 is
the only precinct that has any appreciable minority
population concentration, about 31 percent Hispanic. It has
the largest African Amerir_an concentration of all those;
that's very small. so, about a third -- litt]e more than a
third minority population. We'll want to look at that.
Now, Lhat's fairly small, but I would anticipate that we
would keep that population in that precinct and try not to
reduce those percentages, which should not be very
difficult.
And, let's go back just a minute and look at
the -- the maps. This says J.P., but since they're the
same, it doesn't really matter. Our Precinct 4 is the
largest; we're going to have to lose population. Precinct 3
is the smallest, sort of the gold -- is that what you call
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it? -- or mustard color there on the right. It's going to
have to gain population. Two's going to have to lose a
little, which is the yellowish color. Now, one of our
problems is that 3 is in between our biggest population and
our smallest population. Precinct 3 can get some from
Precinct 2, but it's going to need some more. Precinct 4 is
going to have to lose some. So, we can move it -- move
people through Precinct 1 over to r_he ones on the east, and
what you would do is you just put some people -- you know,
move your line -- both of your lines, I guess, to the west a
little bit. So, you get a few people out of 9, put them
into 1. That may make 1 a little too big, and you take some
people out of 1 and put them into 3.
we haven't made any decisions, and it's not
time to make any decisions about where all that's going to
occur. But, as a practical matter, you know, just off the
top of my head, I would assume that it's likely to occur in
Kerrville, 'cause that's where the people are. We can move
those lines a lot out in the rural areas, and it's not going
to affect many people. We can get some people and move them
substantially, and maybe we can do it out that way, but you
can get an awful lot of people moving within two blocks in
the city. So --
AUDIENCE: Is that where the black rectangle
is, the city?
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MR. HEATH: Yeah, the top one is the city.
And, you know, when we have -- and we will print out great
big maps and stuff like that, and it's always a lot easier
to see, you know, when it's not projected, 'cause you lose
some focus there. But -- and we'll have -- we can get, you
know, close ups down to a single block so you can see what's
going on.
Now, let's move forward, and one of the
things we'll be looking at, because we need to be concerned
about minority concentrations, is where minority citizens
live. This is the Hispanic population. And, as we get into
more detail, we can see more. The darker the color -- and
that's sort of a reddish color -- the greater the Hispanic
population. The very dark is over 60 percent. Pretty dark
red is 50 to 60. There's one that's sort of a bright color,
or bright red, 40 to 50. Pinkish, 20 percent to 40. So,
you can see that the Hispanic population is spread out all
over the county, but the basic population is in Kerrville,
and basically in here and down there.
AUDIENCE: This is the Hispanic?
MR. HEATH: Hispanic.
AUDIENCE: Okay. It says "Black" over here
in the corner.
MR. HEATH: This is Hispanic.
AUDIENCE: Lower left.
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MR. HEATH: Okay. Well, this should be
Hispanic. That's Hispanic. They must have -- let's see.
The black will be the nett, and it's much smaller, 'cause
there's so few blacks. And, basically, the black
population -- largest part of that is right in here.
MS. REDDINGTON: We should point out, Bob,
that this is -- this is a little bit confusing. This is
very dark in color here, and intensity, indicating that over
60 percent of the people that live in this census tract are
black; however, there may only be one or two people.
Remember, I said some of the census tracts are very large,
but only have a few people in them, so there may only be a
couple of people living here, and one or -- and both of them
are black, for instance, and that would make it so it's a
little misleading, a little confusing when you try to
analyze it.
MR. HEATH: Right.
MS. REDDINGTON: The same with the Hispanic.
It's confusing, and so what we have to do is look at the
actual numbers by census tract.
MR. HEATH: Right. In fact, in this --
MS. REDDINGTON: This is big, but there may
not be many people there.
MR. HEATH: Right. I'm trying -- I think --
and this doesn't show anybody. This is a census block right
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here along the river, and it's big. And, in the '90 census,
that was 100 percent Hispanic. It looks like it's zero
percent now, but there was only one person.
MS. REDDINGTON: Must have moved.
MR. HEATH: I represented a city in their
litigation, which it's a large district, and the plaintiffs
kept submitting maps, and they would find every Hispanic
precinct imaginable -- or census block imaginable to put in
their proposed district except that one which they needed to
be a corridor to get from one spot to another. And, I sort
of wonder why they didn't try and get that in. And you
look, and there's only one person in it. And, in fact,
Lhere may not have even been one, because occasionally the
Census Bureau assigns some people for privacy reasons and
a11. Sometimes they just sort of arbitrarily put a person
in a block. And, statistically, it doesn't make any
difference; it's not that big of a deal, but there's just
one person, and so it looks like a very large block -- looks
very Hispanic, but, in fact, it isn't. Now, as a practical
matter, we know there is significant population in this area
and down in Lhat area, both of which are in Precinct --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Three.
MR. HEATH: Three, yeah. Precinct 3 is going
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Kerrville. Doesn't have to be that way, but that's
generally the easiest way to do it.
MS. REDDINGTON: We should, too, point out
that when the -- when the minority precinct -- or the
precinct with the greatest minority population is the most
underpopulated precinct, then when you begin to pick up
people to put into that precinct, you have to be very
careful that you don't dilute, and so just a practical
problem that we'll have to deal with.
MR. HEATH: Right, because you're going to
have to put people in. If you just put Anglos, then that
Hispanic percentage is automatically going to go down.
MS. REDDINGTON: So, it makes it a little
tougher than it could be.
MR. HEATH: Yeah. So -- but that's where
they'll have to be. It's not a whole lot of people that
need to be moved. By now, we have a pretty good idea where
they are. But, you know, that's what our task is going to
be. We're about 17 percent deviation; we need to get that
under 10. We want to get it as close as we reasonably can,
and do it without discriminating, without violating the
Voting Rights Act, and without creating sort of bizarre
districts that will cause problems under Shaw vs. Reno. So,
I think we're done with this part.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Before we take a quick break,

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does anyone have any questions of Bob or Penny as a result
of the overall or the Hill Country -- Pat Dye?
MS. DYE: I have one question. Historically,
the Commissioners Court has always tried to have each
Commissioners Court -- each Commissioner precinct reach the
city.
MR. HEATH: Mm-hmm.
MS. DYE: Is this going to be -- can we do that
this time?
MR. HEATH: I would think so. And they do
now?
MS DYE: Yes.
MR. HEATH: And, in fact --
MS. DYE: 'Cause they, all four, come in.
MR. HEATH: I don't remember exactly what the
population of Kerrville is, but I think you'll find --
MS. DYE: I'd say 17,000.
MR. HEATH: -- enough people to draw a
district, unless you get into --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: About 20,300.
MR. HEATH: You could theoretically draw a
district without coming into Kerrville, but --
MS. DYE: You were saying that's where the
population was.
COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Precinct's compact,
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though, so it's almost impossible to --
MR. HEATH: That's right. And, as I say, it
is very -- it is much easier to work it all out where they
come into the city, because they're -- you know, those
little, bitty blocks in the city have as many people as
these huge census blocks that contain ranches and similar
lands.
MR. BUTTERS: Is there a number that is
considered to be retrogressive in establishing minority?
MR. HEATH: No, there's no real magic bullet
or -- either in retrogression or in what districts will be
discriminatory under Section 2. You can't say, in every
circumstance, that a district has to be -- a minority
~ district has to be, say, 65 percent or 50 percent or
whatever. We know that right now, voting age population
Hispanics, or Hispanic voting age population percentage in
District 3 is about 30 percent. If we're at 30 percent,
we're not going to be retrogressive, 'cause we're not going
to be moving backwards. So, to that extent, that's pretty
close to a magic number; we want to stay pretty close to
that. So, we don't want to move backwards from where we
are, if we can.
MR. BUTTERS: I didn't know whether it was
statistically tied to -- your discussion didn't point out
whether it was statistically tied to a population skewness
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change. In the -- let's say, for example, you had changed
an arbitrary 5 percent upwards in a particular minority. Do
you have to, say, pick some standard deviation from that
skewness that has been introduced from the prior -- they're
not playing that game?
MR. HEATH: No.
MR. BUTTERS: Good.
MR. HEATH: Well, I say they're not, and I
think they're not. Sometimes they play games that leave me
wondering, but -- but, no, they typically have not done
that. I don't think they will do that. Yes, sir?
MR. BUROW: One of the concerns in '91, which
is -- I think that's the first time this county ever went
into the urban area like they did --
MR. HEATH: Uh-huh.
MR. BUROW: -- was the rural vote versus
the -- versus the urban vote.
MR. HEATH: Yeah.
MR. BUROW: Do you have any statistics, like,
say, Precinct 3, how many of -- of Jonathan's constituents
are urban versus rural?
MR. HEATH: No, we don't do that. We don't
have that. We could figure that out if we could define what
we mean by urban or rural. Now, if you say how many are
inside Kerrville and inside Ingram or whatever --
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MR. BUROW: We11, I don't think it really --
it was just a concern at the time, and I don't think it's
really materialized to be any kind of problem at all, but
it's something that will come up again, I'm sure.
MR. HEATH: Sure. It's -- you know, we do
not have that, but you could figure it out. Yes, ma'am?
MS. BOLIN: I have a question on time.
JUDGE HENNEKE: We're making a record, so I'm
going to ask y'all to identify yourselves by name when you
make comments. So, tell us --
MR. BUROW: Clarence Burow.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you.
M5. BOLIN: Diane Bolin. I'm Deputy Voter
Registrar. Is there any way we can move the timeline a
little bit so that it will give us a little time before we
have to do our mass mailout in December? Otherwise, I'm
going to be sending duplicate cards right before the
primary.
MR. HEATH: Well, we can work today on what
the timeline is going to be. Now, the timeline for you to
adopt voting precincts is going to be October 1, by state
law. You can do it before then, but the last day that you
can adept voting precincts is October 1.
MS. BOLIN: So, if we adopted prior to
Gctober 1, we could get it to Department of Justice
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beforehand and maybe get them in in time, if they're --
MR. HEATH: Yes. Now, some things -- you
know, you can't implement a plan or an election change
before you have Department of Justice approval.
MS. BOLIN: Right.
MR. HEATH: You know, what is implementation?
Can you mail out your voter registration cards before that?
I think you can, arguably. You know, sometimes -- often
people do that, you know. So, you may be taking a risk that
you're not going to get precleared, but generally you can
determine if that's an acceptable risk. And, you know, it
may be that you have to do it again, but you can judge that.
And, you know, maybe the percentages are 2 or 3 percent that
it's going to be a problem. Maybe it's worth just going
ahead and doing it in that case. One of the problems that I
don't think is going to affect Kerr County, as a practical
matter, but -- but it could, is legislative plans, because
the Legislature is going to draw representatives,
senatorial, congressional, State Board of Education
districts. If -- and, I assure you, those are going to be
challenged iii court. I'm working with the State on some of
that, and there are, I think, seven pending lawsuits right
now, and they haven't even passed them.
MS. BOLIN: Just in case.
MR. HEATH: And, it's a -- so there are going
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to be people that are going to sue. And if one side -- if
the Republicans don't sue, the Democrats will, and
vice-versa. So, it's -- and, you know, if this minority
group doesn't, that minority group will, and maybe some
Ang1o group under Shaw vs. Reno, so you're going to have all
sorts of lawsuits. If the lines change by court order, or
if the Legislature goes into special session, or the
Legislative Redistricting Board draws plans, that's going to
push the time back. Kerr County ought to be all right,
because it's not big enough to be its own state
representative district. I haven't seen the proposed state
representative district plan. I think there's a good r_hance
that it will be in a single state Republican district and
will not be split. Likewise, with -- with the state senate,
congressional districts, they tend to split more counties,
but they're so big, and any district that's going to come
out here to the west of the population centers of Austin and
San Antonio, I think it's pretty unlikely to split Kerr
County. So, you may not be split at all, and it may not
matter, but that possibility is there, and that's something
that there's no way we can plan on it. And, that's going to
cause a lot of problems for you if it happens, 'cause we're
going to have to go back and do some -- do some of this
again to take care of what the courts have done.
MS. BOLIN: I was here during the '91
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redistricting, so it's -- I know what a nightmare it can be.
MR. HEATH: Yeah.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions?
MS. HARRIS: My name is Amber Harris.
Whenever people from the community propose their ideas, can
the Kerr County Commissioners Court revise them?
MR. HEATH: Well, you know, if you have an
idea -- let's say you had a plan and you submit it. And,
you know, Commissioners Court could look at it and they
could say, "Well, you know, this looks like a really good
plan, but we don't like this little piece." And, you know,
they can do it, because whatever plan is ultimately adopted,
it's going to be their plan. It may come from you, may come
from somebody else, it may come from the staff, but they can
do -- they can adopt whatever plan they want to. And, they
may take a plan from a citizen and say, "This is really
good, but we need to switch this for this to make it work,
or to make it work better."
MS. HARRIS: Thank you.
MR. HEATH: That's not an uncommon thing.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone else?
COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Judge, in case we're
going to lose some of our Advisory Committee members because
of the hour, could we maybe go ahead and do the two
resolutions right quick so that at least they'll know what
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we're about in that area, and then take our break? Is
there -- I think that's what --
JUDGE HENNEKE: I'm trying to save the carpal
tunnel syndrome on our court reporter. Is there anyone who
has to leave in the next few minutes? Well, let's take a
real quick 5-minute stand-up-and-stretch break, and we'll
come back. We've got to talk abouY_ schedule, criteria, and
the requirements for submitting your own plan, as well as
talk about the role of the committee. So, let's take a
quick 5 minutes and be back at, let's say, 5:32, by that
clock.
Recess from 5:26 p.m. to 5:32 p.m.)
JUDGE HENNEKE: Let's push on, folks. The
next issue we're going to take up is one of a general
schedule. I would certainly suggest that the Court adopt an
August 1st deadline for having the plan adopted by the
Court, as far as the Commissioners' precincts, with an
October 1st deadline for voting precincts. It's -- it's
been suggested that we set a deadline of June 30th for any
plans to be submitted to the Court by a member of the
general public. Mr. Heath tells me that they will have an
initial plan ready for us to consider within about 30 days,
and his suggestion, which I think we should follow, is that
when they bring the initial plan, then we will schedule a
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public hearing on that initial plan, take comments, and then
after that, there will be an opportunity for either
revisions of that plan or for the public to submit a plan,
which we will then discuss in a subsequent public hearing.
So, we're looking at two public hearings, the first one
probably sometime in end of May, early in June. Then, the
June 30th deadline for submission of any public plans,
another public hearing sometime in mid-July, with an
August 1st deadline for approval of the Commissioners'
precinct plan, and an October 1st deadline for approval --
adoption of the voting precinct plans. Bob, is that
accurate --
MR. HEATH: Yes.
DODGE HENNEKE: -- accurately represented?
Does anyone have any comments or -- or suggestions on that
general outline of a schedule?
COMMISSIONER GRir'r'1N: I move that we adopt
that as a guideline schedule.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner
Griffin, seconded by Commissioner Williams, that we adopt a
general schedule as follows: Adoption of a plan for
Commissioners' precincts by August 1st, Year 2001. Adoption
of the plan for voting precincts by October 1st, 2001.
Public hearing on the initial plan proposed by Mx. Heath and
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his colleagues by not later than June 10th. Deadline --
MS. REDDINGTON: June 15th would give us a
little more flexibility.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Deadline for submission of
plans from the public of June 30th, with a target date of
the second public hearing on the plan by July 15th. Does
that meet with your accord?
MS. REDDINGTON: That will work.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions or comments?
MS. DAVIS: Shouldn't the public plans be
considered before they come with their plan by -- what did
you say? June the --
JUDGE HENNEKE: June 30th.
MS. DAVIS: June 15th? You said public plans by
June the 30th.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Mr. Heath's experience, as
explained to me, is that the plan that he proposes, which
we'll have a public hearing on, will be the one that will
spark people to bring in their own plans.
MS. DAMS: I see.
JUDGE HENNEKE: So, it's really --
MS. DAMS: Gives them some ideas of how to --
JUDGE HENNEKE: Exactly. It becomes a better
process if they work off of the professional -- the staff
plan, if you will, as opposed to trying to anticipate the
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staff plan.
MS. REDDINGTON: We will come with a plan
that balances the precincts and complies with the Voting
Rights Act, so that's a good starting place. It may not be
perfect and there may be some changes that need to be made,
but that's a good starting place. If you just start from
scratch, it's very hard --
MS. DAMS: Mm-hmm.
MS. REDDINGTON: -- to do that.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other comments? We have
a motion and second. All in favor, raise your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Next item
we're going to take up are the criteria for the -- for
redistricting. You all actually have the criteria; they
were sent to you in the -- in the first mailing. They were
actually handed out to you again in the materials that were
in the back when you all came into the room today. You had
the criteria, you had a copy of the generic schedule, as
well as you had a copy of this preliminary demographic
report. So, the criteria that are reflected in the
resolution which we're going to consider are the --
essentially, the criteria which you all have already
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received. And, I've handed out a copy of the resolution to
each of the members of the Commissioners Court. I want to
ask at this time, do any of the Commissioners or the public
have any questions or comments regarding the proposed
criteria? These are very important for purposes of meeting
the Department of Justice scrutiny.
COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I take it this format
in the statement has passed muster many times before?
MS. REDDINGTON: Carefully worded, yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yes. I move we adopt
the resolution as submitted.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second.
DODGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner
Griffin, seconded by Commissioner Letz, that the Court adopt
the resolution adopting criteria for the use of the
redistricting 2001 process. Again, I will ask you all in
the Advisory Committee, do you see anything in the criteria
that were previously provided to you or that were handed out
today that you have any questions or comments about? These
are what we're going to use to evaluate the work product
throughout the next two, three months. Okay. Seeing none,
do I have any questions or comments from the Commissioners?
Okay. If not, all in favor, raise your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
DODGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign.
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(No response.)
JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. The next
item we're going to take up is our guidelines for persons
submitting specific redistricting proposals. These were not
made available -- I didn't see them before today, but let me
just quickly read them to the members of the Advisory
Committee. Number 1, plans should be submitted in writing.
Number 2, any plan should show the total population and
voting age population for African Americans, Hispanics,
Asian, Anglo, and other for each proposed Commissioner
precinct. Number 3, plans should be submitted by June 30th,
2001. Number 4, plans should redistrict the entire county.
Number 5, plans should conform to the criteria the Court's
just adopted in drawing the Commissioner precincts.
So, again, to summarize, if any member of the
public wants to submit a plan, and we certainly encourage
that and will work with you, it must -- it must be in
writing, it must have the breakdowns, voting population,
total population, and ethnicity of each Commissioner's
precinct, and it must cover the entire county; that is, all
four precincts, and it must be submitted by June 30th, Year
2001, and it must meet the criteria which the Court has just
adopted. That's so when we deal with any plan that comes
up, we're dealing with apples and apples. We have a full
plan that meets all the requirements that we can look at and
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evaluate and go forward. Does anyone have any comments or
questions regarding the proposed requirements?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, I move the
Court adopt the guidelines for persons submitting specific
redistricting proposals as presented.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner
Williams, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin, that the Court
approve the guidelines for persons submitting specific
redistricting proposals. Any further questions or comments?
If not, all in favor, raise your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. I will be
sending out to each of you on the committee copies of the
criteria as adopted, and the requirements -- the guidelines
for persons submitting plans, so you'll have those available
to use as we go forward with the process.
MS . DAM S : And the --
JUDGE HENNEKE: Pardon? Someone have a
comment?
MS. DAMS: When you said you were going to mail
out the criteria that you all have adopted, would you also
include in there those dates that you --
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JUDGE HENNEKE: Yes, we'll include a schedule
is the role of the Advisory Committee? My perception of the
Advisory Committee -- first of all, let's make it clear
today, so it's understood, that it's an advisory committee.
Commissioners Court has the responsibility and the legal
obligation and legal liability for adopting the plan, so the
plan will be adopted by the Commissioners Court. What I, in
particular, am looking to you all for is suggestions as to
its workability. You all represent the entire county.
There's at least five of you from each of the four
precincts, and several at-large. You have the feel for
what's on the ground better than, certainly, I do. You have
the ability to tell us, "That looks good on paper, but
here's a practical problem." You have the ability to tell
us, "Well, we've" -- you know, "we've always not liked the
fact that we had to go so far to vote." And that's been
done before, and that's something that's very important to
us.
So, my perception of your role is to be as
involved as you want to be. We want you to be fully
involved, to ask questions, to make suggestions, and to
bring to us ways that we can improve the process and result
in the best plan, because this plan is going to be the
voting roadmap for Kerr County for the next 10 years. Any
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of	the	Commissioners have any comments,	anything	they want
to	add	to that?		
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just wanted to echo
your thoughts, Judge, and say that the representatives from
Precinct 1 are by far the smartest bunch in the room. So --
(Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I thank you very much
for your advice.
JUDGE HENNEKE
Do any of you all on Lhe
committee --
COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Is that how you gut
that weird-shaped precinct?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wait till you see the
next one.
DODGE HENNEKE: Does anyone on the comri~ittee
have anything? Any thoughts? Any questions? This really
needs to be, as much as we can, a dialogue. We are -- yes,
Marie?
MS. DAMS: I just know that there are areas,
such as out in Precinct 4, where it's almost an
impossibility to get a voting precinct, and so I would
really like some consideration in those areas where we -- in
fact, the -- probably Jannett knows this as well as I do, or
better, because we've worked together on it. And -- and
Jonathan has some of those problems in his precinct, as
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well.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone else?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think -- just a general
~ comment, that I think everyone needs to -- that if they
could kind of keep in mind the boundaries. Currently, we're
using everything from telephone lines to streets to rivers
and everything else, and I -- and it makes it very difficult
for -- I think, for the public to understand where they are,
exactly what precinct. So, I think one of the tkrings we
need to try, if possible, is to stay to a major road; don't
split subdivisions, don't split, you know, ranch roads and
things of that nature, because it becomes very confusing to
the public. And, I know a lot of my precinct, but I'm sure
members of my committee that I appointed, they know areas
far better than I do, and I look to them, you knuw, to help
on that area a lot, just to make sure that we're not doing
something -- splitting something that shouldn't be split.
JUDGE HENNEKE: Anything else? If not, we
want to thank you all for coming. we appreciate your
service, and we look forward to your input and assistance as
we make our way through the process. Thank you all, and we
stand adjourned.
(Commissioners Court adjourned at 5:45 p.m.)
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4 J
STATE OF TEXAS I
COUNTY OF KERR
The above and foregoing is a true and complete
transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as
County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County,
Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth.
DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 27th day of April,
2001.
JANNETT PIEPEA, Kerr County Clerk
BY: ___ _ _ ~~u(G-___-________ _
Kathy Ba 'k, Deputy County Clerk
Certified Shorthand Reporter
car,DEF; Nn ~r/~a~a5
I~I.D'I'3 T'Ci I CT:C N(.i
GI.IIDE:L..INE: SCHE:DUL.F_
(:hi t:hi.s thug E':3rd day of f-1pr:i:L GQI]7.ry upon mot:i.on made by
(:;c:nnm:i.s<.:>ioner C3r:i'f'F':in9 sec>ondcrd lay Ccrnuni.<ssi.one'r Wi.1l.i.<:uns, the
C:oi.rrt unanimously approved by a vote ofi ~r0-0, i:o adopt a
yene'raJ. =.;chu-xJu].ta 'rcaga'rdind rr_ai9.strr:ic'hi.ng as 'follows r.
I*lay 3:1.<sL- t<approx.) submission oi' f:irst proposed
Commi.ssiane~r's redastrictiny plan by
Fs:icl:Errstatfi~f~, Fleathry 5m:i.ley, 1::'oa.lan,
Kevcr., McX)<'an:i.ea.,, L_.I_.I'-'.
/'^
June	J.Sth	tapprox.)	Fhablic hear:i.na on propose+d	plan.
Jlnle	30Th		L_<a<.St: day fc:rr members G'f 'h:he	17Lrb:tiC {:o
submit their own Commiss:ioner7s precinct
plans,
July ].5th <<approx.) 5er_ond publ:i.c hearing an Commas<si.onerr's
redistricting plan(s).
Rugust 1st fldopt •redistricting plan ancJ submit same
to Department o~f Ju<.;tice for Voting Fiiyh•ta
Rct F're-Clearance.
October 1<.;t Rdopt and submit voting precincts
rccJistricti.ng plan to DepartmerrL oi'
Justir_e..
OI;DER NU 2C.,`79G
Rh'.301_UT'I(]hl AI)C1F~'T'T.IJG C;CiT7ERTA
F<I'D7:.~1'f2]:C'T TNCi F'6'tC7CE:SS
On this; 'Che f?arri ri<:ty o'C Apr:i.7. 'r.'(7f~:L.,r.rF>on moti.o;7 m~uacz I:ry
Comma<.;~>i.ane'r Gi'rif'fin., <.:E;>carulecl by Camm:i.<.:;<.:;:iarnar L..Extzy 'thcr
Cor.rrt unanimously ~'tp~raved by a vote of 4-0-Cdr to <adolat
hhra re<.c>a7.u'bi.on adopting ori.i;e•ria i`or 'thca a<_;e a'P i:hEa a<.:;e o'F
rc_~d:i<.;>trictiny c?('7(J'1 17'PGCEl55.
/^
UI:AF_f. I~IU 2r:,9'J7
--- OhAC_IR AT)(JF~'T':CN(; Sf~'L'.:CTf"lC; I'hUF~'U(Sfal_~i
Ei E::T) l S'1'F l (~7 T N(:i
(an thins tlua 'r.''.."3rd d.zy of April 13(7(77.9 upon mni:i.on marls:? by
Cc]nun:i.=_>sic]ne'r Wi.7.1:i<am~..9 Sc?at]t'tclerl I]y Commis<.:>i.c:mn'r Etaa.dwin , i';1'te
Cc]urt: unanimously approved by a vase of 4-0-0, to ~ipprovlt~ then
I~I.I :LC F'?..l.ll e!S3 i'or I:1 E?'r SiOllF.i S>l.ll]011'('a a. tll;l 4i I:)P('l i'1[^. 'r(3(:17. 5i'(:'f`:L Cl'(::L 1'11
p'f'Op05<1 ESi„