1 2 3 4 5 6 7 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 8 Special Session 9 Monday, April 23, 2001 10 4:00 p.m. 11 Commissioners' Courtroom 12 Kerr County Courthouse 13 Kerrville, Texas 14 15 16 17 REDISTRICTING 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: FREDERICK L. HENNEKE, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 LARRY GRIFFIN, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X April 23, 2001 PAGE 2 3 2.14 Presentation by outside legal counsel, initial assessment regarding need to redistrict 3 4 2.16 Adoption of redistricting schedule 58 5 2.17 Adoption of criteria to govern development of 6 redistricting plans 61 7 --- Adoption of guidelines for persons submitting specific redistricting proposals 63 8 2.18 Role of Citizens Advisory Committee in 9 redistricting process 65 10 Adjourned 67 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 On Monday, April 23, 2001, at 4 p.m., a special meeting 2 of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in the 3 Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, Kerrville, 4 Texas, and the following proceedings were had in open court: 5 P R O C E E D I N G S 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: It is 4 o'clock in the 7 afternoon on Monday, April 23rd, Year 2001. We will call to 8 order the recessed special -- regular special session of the 9 Kerr County Commissioners Court. First of all, I want to 10 thank everyone who came today, the members of the Citizens 11 Committee on Redistricting, and we look forward to your 12 input. We appreciate your participation. I know I've said 13 it repeatedly, and I mean it sincerely, that our government 14 is only as good as the help we get from the citizens, and we 15 want to thank each and every one of you for agreeing to take 16 the time and for taking the time to come and help us out 17 with this most fundamental responsibility that we have, 18 which is guaranteeing that we each have the right to have 19 our vote counted and counted appropriately. So, once again, 20 thank you all for coming. 21 At this time, I want to introduce to you our 22 consultants from Austin. First of all, Mr. Bob Heath, and 23 Ms. Penny Reddington from the firm of Bickerstaff, Heath, 24 et al, who are here to help us with the process of 25 redistricting. Before we hear their initial assessment, do 4 1 any Commissioners have anything they want to add at this 2 time? 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd like to move. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Feel free. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that precinct lines, 6 or -- 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. Only if I can 8 have Riverhill. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: If no one else has anything 10 to offer at this time, we'll go ahead and get started. 11 First item for consideration on the formal agenda is Item 12 Number 14, consider and discuss presentation by outside 13 legal counsel of the initial assessment regarding the need 14 to redistrict based on the 2001 census data. Bob, are you 15 up? 16 MR. HEATH: Well, actually, I think Penny's 17 going to start. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 19 MR. HEATH: We're going to do a tag team. 20 MS. REDDINGTON: If I stand too close here, 21 I'm going to be in the light, but I don't want to turn my 22 back to anyone. Judge, Commissioners, it's a pleasure to be 23 with you this afternoon. We certainly thank you for giving 24 us a chance to come down and visit with you and with the 25 Citizens Advisory Committee. I hope we have a chance to 5 1 meet all of you before this afternoon is over. My name is 2 Penny Reddington. I'm an attorney with Bickerstaff, Heath, 3 and Smiley, as is Bob Heath, who's one of the named partners 4 with the firm, and we are here because we have been retained 5 by the County to work with them on this round of 6 redistricting. 7 Every 10 years after the census, numbers come 8 in. Local governments that are representative in nature, 9 local governments that elect representative members to a 10 body, must look at their relative populations among the 11 precincts and determine whether or not they are out of 12 balance because of population changes, and determine whether 13 or not they need to redistrict, and that just means to 14 redraw their lines such that the -- the population count is 15 equal or as close to equal as possible in each of the 16 precincts. You can't move people. You can't cut people up, 17 so what you have to do is move the lines to accommodate 18 changes in population growth. 19 And, there's some interesting aspects to it. 20 The requirement to equalize the districts is a 21 constitutional requirement, but there are also some 22 influences from the Voting Rights Act which are very 23 important. And the Voting Rights Act, of course, was 24 enacted to protect the rights of minorities, and the right 25 of minorities in particular in this case, to participate 6 1 fully in the election process. So, we have done -- our firm 2 has done this kind of work for a number of years. I think 3 Bob was involved in redistricting in the 1980's, in 1981 4 after the 1980 census, and maybe even -- 5 MR. HEATH: '70. 6 MS. REDDINGTON: -- after the 1970 census. 7 And, back then, it was done with a calculator and a map 8 pencil, and you worked on a county roadmap or something to 9 do it. As the decades have gone by, it's become a much more 10 sophisticated process and a much more technologically driven 11 process. With computers now, we can do a lot to equalize 12 the population and make sure that minorities are not diluted 13 or disenfranchised in some manner. So, I have a -- a little 14 background on the census which I think might be interesting 15 to you. 16 There's been a lot of talk about the census 17 the last couple of years. I'm sure most of you responded to 18 the census form that was either sent to you in the mail or 19 to the census person who came to your -- your door, and the 20 government gets a lot of important data from that. They 21 also may get some data that some of us thought maybe was 22 irrelevant and a little bit more detailed than we expected 23 to -- to be providing. But, there was a lot of talk about 24 the census, and a lot of talk about how complete the count 25 would be. There was some question as to whether it would be 7 1 an accurate count, whether people would be overlooked, and 2 there was talk about what numbers would be used. Would the 3 local governments be using numbers and the federal 4 government be using numbers that were adjusted to take 5 account -- take into account the fact that some people maybe 6 didn't respond to the census? 7 As it turned out, we will be using the actual 8 head count data, which the Census Bureau released to us in 9 mid-March. Now, we have -- our firm has purchased this 10 census data. We have spent the last few weeks downloading 11 it, putting it into a format that's usable for purposes of 12 redistricting. It's a lot of work. It's very interesting, 13 but it's somewhat tedious. And, Bob doesn't do it and I 14 don't do it; we don't actually manipulate the computers a 15 lot, but it's interesting to see what results come from -- 16 from the analysis of this data, and we're here today to 17 present those to the Commissioners Court and to you, the 18 Advisory Committee. So, I'm going to start with this slide 19 presentation. If you can't see it, we can make some 20 adjustments. Those of you over here may have a little more 21 trouble. And, I'll try to stay out of the way here. Now 22 can you see? 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm fine, Penny. 24 MS. REDDINGTON: Okay. Let me begin here 25 with the first portion. I'm going to talk about the census 8 1 and the law. Bob Heath is going to talk a little bit about 2 some of the legal guidelines for redistricting, and then 3 we're going to talk about the process that we will follow so 4 that everyone understands how this works. There's kind of a 5 sequential method of going about doing it. And, then we 6 will talk about the specific data for Kerr County. 7 What is redistricting? Well, it's complying 8 with the constitutional requirement for one person, one 9 vote. As I said, if we have a representative body, those 10 members need to represent approximately equal populations. 11 It's not fair if Precinct Number 1 is very underpopulated, 12 Precinct Number 3 is very overpopulated. And, who has to do 13 it? Well, the State Legislature has to do it. They draw 14 the lines for congressional seats and for their own state 15 legislative members. County Commissioners are 16 representative, and so they must do it. If you have a 17 single-member school district in your county, that district 18 will need to redraw its lines if they've become -- if the 19 precincts -- or the districts have become out of balance. 20 Cities, colleges, water districts, any group that elects 21 from single-member districts in a representative capacity. 22 Now, this is just an example of what your 23 county might look like. This is an abstract example, but I 24 think this is helpful. After the census, we may discover 25 that only a few people live in one precinct, while a great 9 1 many more live in another. What triggers actually having to 2 redistrict? How far out of balance can you be until you 3 have to redistrict? Well, they've never really -- there's 4 not really a place where it's written down, where it says 5 10 percent -- if you're 10 percent out of balance, but the 6 courts have kind of walked around it with different cases, 7 and we've determined that -- that if a -- if the deviation 8 is less than 10 percent, it's probably not going to be 9 necessary to redistrict. If it's more than 10 percent, it 10 probably is necessary. We are representing a lot of 11 counties and cities and school districts, and so far we've 12 had two that do not have to -- have to redistrict. One of 13 them had grown by about 30 percent, but the growth was equal 14 in each precinct, almost the same, and so their deviation 15 was under 10 percent, and that county did not have to -- 16 have to redistrict. 17 Well, how do we -- how do we get the 18 deviation? What we do is we compare the district with the 19 greatest population to the district with the least 20 population. We determine how far they deviate from the 21 ideal precinct size, which you obtain just by dividing by 22 four the population of the county, and if it's more than 23 10 percent, then that would trigger redistricting. And 24 then, when we finish by redrawing the lines, we have equal 25 populations. Now, as you know, the census day was actually 10 1 April 1st, 2000. It's like a snapshot was taken of the 2 United States on that day. The number of people living in 3 this county were enumerated, and the release of the data, 4 which is public law -- it's called a PL94-171 data. That's 5 the census data. It was released in mid-march. 6 Now, we get the data in a computerized 7 format, and it breaks it down by block level. And, that's 8 census block, not city block. Although in a city, one city 9 block may be a census block or census tract. Out in a rural 10 area, maybe a whole section of land, 640 acres, or a large 11 area may be a census block, because there would not be as 12 many people. We also get the total population numbers for 13 the county. We get the voting age population percentage. 14 We get a breakdown by race and by ethnicity, and those are 15 the numbers that we then use to pull together to come up 16 with the numbers that fit this county and each precinct in 17 this county. 18 Now, we utilize the total population when 19 we're trying to determine issues concerning one person, one 20 vote. We use the total population. But when we're talking 21 about voting rights issues, there's another figure that's 22 very important, and that is the voting age population, the 23 percentage of people in a precinct who are of voting age. 24 It doesn't mean that they're registered; it doesn't mean 25 that they're eligible to register, except that they are of 11 1 the right age to register to vote. In other words, they may 2 not be citizens, but they are of the age to vote. 3 Now, if you recall when you took the -- when 4 you submitted your responses to the census questionnaire, 5 you were the one who designated your race. No one came to 6 you and said, oh, you're this or you're that. They asked 7 you what you thought your racial background or makeup was, 8 so you're the one who filled in that blank. You made that 9 decision about yourself, and possibly about your family. 10 And, people were able to say that they belong to more than 11 one race. In other words, a mixed-race background, you 12 could indicate that on your -- on your census form. You 13 were also asked to say whether or not you were Hispanic or 14 non-Hispanic. 15 This is the way the Justice Department 16 actually looks at the racial categories that the Census 17 Bureau asks about. The Justice Department, of course, is 18 responsible for enforcing the Voting Rights Act, and so we 19 have taken the data about your -- that we receive from your 20 county and put it into a format that is like this format 21 that the Justice Department recognizes and uses. And, you 22 can see that some of these races are not going to be 23 applicable in your county. There just will not be many 24 people here -- there may be a handful, but there won't be 25 many people here in Kerr County who are of Pacific Islander 12 1 descent, for example. There may be some American Indians. 2 There will be some Asian people, of Asian background, but 3 there won't be the numbers that you might find in a more 4 urbanized area. But, these are all numbers that we receive 5 and have to -- have to account for. 6 Now, if you designated yourself as Hispanic, 7 you're going to be categorized as Hispanic, no matter what 8 other race you designate. If you designate yourself as a 9 single race, that's what you're going to be categorized as. 10 That's -- that goes without saying; that's pretty obvious, 11 but we thought we needed to put that in there. If you say, 12 though, that you belong to a single-minority race and the 13 white race, you will be counted as part of that minority 14 race category. So, if you say that you're black and white, 15 you will be designated as being black. If you say that 16 you're Asian and white, you'll be designated as being part 17 of the Asian category. And then there's some other 18 multiple -- if you list two minority races, say, black and 19 Asian, then you're listed as being in a multiple -- other 20 multiple race category. That's not -- that won't be very 21 many people. 22 Now, as the County goes about its 23 redistricting in the next few months, what they do can be 24 affected by some other things that are going on. I'm sure 25 you've been seeing in the newspaper that the Texas 13 1 Legislature is knee-deep in redistricting, and there's a lot 2 of gnashing of teeth and a lot of misery at the Capitol 3 these days because the growth in Texas was not very even. 4 We had a lot of growth in urban areas, not so much growth in 5 rural areas -- in fact, a decline in population in some 6 rural areas, and there are a great many incumbent state 7 legislators who are going to find that they are paired with 8 other state legislators who are incumbents, and they're 9 going to have to run against one another, and this is going 10 to be very traumatic and very difficult for them. And, they 11 are struggling right now with how they're going to draw the 12 lines for the legislative districts in Texas. In addition, 13 if you have a city that elects from single-member districts, 14 and that city is more than 10,000 in population -- and I 15 believe, Judge, is that -- is that the case here now in 16 Kerrville? 17 (Judge Henneke nodded.) 18 MS. REDDINGTON: Okay. Then those lines, as 19 well as the legislative lines, can affect what the County 20 does. The County may have to come back in later -- and the 21 County Clerk knows about this -- may have to come back in 22 later and adjust its voting precinct lines to accommodate 23 these legislative lines or these city council lines, and we 24 will -- we'll be working with you to accomplish that. But, 25 you think you have it all done and you have it all perfect, 14 1 and then you get word that the Legislature has decided to 2 cut right through the town or something, and we may have to 3 adjust for that. So, while we hope the process will be over 4 quickly, there will be some things that could cause it to be 5 delayed a bit. The Legislature also could be involved in 6 litigation, and that could make a difference, as well, and 7 slow them down some. 8 Now, I'm going to turn it over to Bob, and 9 he's going to talk about the legal issues that are facing 10 counties. Things are very different; it's a very different 11 atmosphere now, and I think you'll find this interesting. I 12 think it's an interesting aspect of this. Bob? 13 MR. HEATH: There is -- when we look at the 14 legal issues in doing redistricting, as Penny said, we start 15 out with the proposition that, under the Constitution of the 16 United States, after a case called Reynolds vs. Simms, which 17 was decided the '60's, districts have to be equal, or 18 relatively so. Actually, I said Reynolds, which was the 19 first case that really said one person, one vote. The case 20 that said that county commissions and local governments 21 generally are covered is Avery vs. Midland County, a case 22 coming out of Midland, Texas, involving commissioners 23 courts. That's the one for the entire nation that says 24 local governments have to be to population. So, the first 25 thing we're going to do is talk about -- or make sure in our 15 1 redistricting that the Commissioners' precincts are roughly 2 equal population. J.P. precincts are not representative 3 bodies; they don't have to be of equal population, but in 4 this case, they correspond to the Commissioners' precincts, 5 so they are. 6 Some of the things that you have to be 7 concerned about in addition to this constitutional problem 8 is the Department of Justice's role in preclearance. And, 9 another thing -- or changes in legal standards for liability 10 that are different today than they were 10 years ago, we'll 11 be talking about those. The first thing is preclearance 12 under the Voting Rights Act. What's the Department of 13 Justice going to do? What role do they play? Well, the 14 first thing you have to understand is that after the Civil 15 Rights Act -- or the Voting Rights Act of 1965, covered 16 states -- and Texas became a covered state effective 1972, 17 so changes -- voting changes made in Texas after 1972 have 18 to be approved either by a 3-judge District Court sitting in 19 the District of Columbia, or by the Department of Justice. 20 Now -- and you have to do that before you can 21 do it. Before you change the voting precincts, you have to 22 go and get a Good Housekeeping seal of approval from the 23 Department of Justice or from the District Court. As a 24 practical matter, it's the Department of Justice. I read 25 something that in the first 25 or 30 years or whatever of 16 1 the Voting Rights Act, there have been 55 preclearance cases 2 filed in the District Court of the District of Columbia. 3 There have about 270,000 Department of Justice preclearances 4 during that time. Much easier to go to the Department of 5 Justice. That's what everybody does. That's what we'll do. 6 But, what they're going to be looking at -- 7 and there are four things, generally, that -- that are at 8 issue: One person, one vote; we talked about that. Voting 9 Rights Act, Section 5; that's what the Department of Justice 10 will be talking about or looking at. Voting Rights Act, 11 Section 2; we'll talk about that in a minute. And Shaw vs. 12 Reno, which has to do with the limited role of race. The 13 Department of Justice is going to be looking at the second 14 of those, which is Section 5. To get preclearance, to get 15 approval by the Department of Justice, Kerr County is going 16 to have to show that the proposed election changes -- and, 17 in this case, we're talking about changes in Commissioner 18 precincts, justice precincts, and perhaps changes in voting 19 precinct lines and perhaps polling places -- that those 20 proposed changes do not have the purpose and will not have 21 the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote. 22 Purpose or effect. We didn't mean for it to deny the right 23 to vote, and it doesn't do it. 24 And, what happened is, in the past, in the 25 1990's, before the Department of Justice used the Section 5 17 1 review process to maximize the number of minority districts, 2 if you could have drawn two minority districts, but you only 3 drew one, they'd come back and say, "We don't think that's 4 right. You have to draw two. Come back with two, and then 5 we'll approve you." And, in Miller vs. Johnson, 1995, the 6 Supreme Court said no, you can't maximize. The standard is 7 retrogression. That is, has the change caused the 8 jurisdiction to go backwards in terms of minority voting 9 rights? Are minorities worse off under the new plan than 10 they were under the old plan? So, it's a backsliding 11 standard. Are you backsliding? And that's what the 12 Department's role is going to be this time. They cannot 13 condition Section 5 approval on compliance with the Section 14 2 standard. Section 2 says you can't discriminate against 15 minority groups. They can't use that standard. If -- if a 16 plan has a discriminatory effect, even though it's no worse 17 than it was before, it's not retrogressive; it's okay under 18 Section 5. 19 Section 2 talks about having a discriminatory 20 effect. Section 5 talks about a retrogressive effect. All 21 the Department of Justice is supposed to look at is 22 retrogressive effect, and that was in this case called 23 Bossier Parish Number 1. They didn't say enough then, so 24 they said it again in Bossier Parish Number 2. That case 25 went back, got decided again in the District Court, came 18 1 back to the Supreme Court, and they talked about the 2 purpose. If you'll recall, we talked about you can't have 3 the purpose or effect of denying or abridging the right to 4 vote. Bossier Parrish 1 talked about effect; 2 talks about 5 purpose. 6 And, the Department said, "Well, we can look 7 at these discriminatory issues and these maximization 8 issues, because if you're not doing all that you can or if 9 you are adopting something that is discriminatory, then even 10 if it's not a retrogressive effect, even if you're not 11 backsliding, it has the purpose of discriminating. You have 12 the bad purpose, and we can reject a plan on that basis." 13 And the Department said no, only if it is a purpose to move 14 backwards. Doesn't move backwards, doesn't have the purpose 15 of moving backwards. So, that's what the Department -- or 16 what the Supreme Court has said the Department of Justice 17 has to do, and it's much more limited standards than they 18 have previously used. 19 So, right now, a plan can't be retrogressive. 20 It can't reduce minority strength or have the purpose of 21 retrogressing -- of reducing minority strength. You measure 22 retrogression against the benchmark, which is the last 23 legally enforceable plan, which is generally the last 24 precleared plan. So, in our case, it will be the plan that 25 was passed in 1991 and that we use today. And you look at 19 1 that benchmark plan against the 2000 census, PL94-171 -- 2 that's the specific name of the type of census data that we 3 use in redistricting. So, we take the existing plan, we 4 take the new census. It wasn't -- that plan wasn't drawn 5 under the new census, but we have to take what we have, and 6 so we look at the percentages and the way that plan treats 7 minorities under the existing population figures, and that's 8 our benchmark, and we're going to try not to backslide from 9 that. 10 Sometimes you have to backslide a little. 11 District's underpopulated, and you have -- you know, let's 12 say you have a 50 percent minority population -- voting age 13 population in a district, but the district's underpopulated. 14 There are no more minorities to put in. You've got to put 15 people in to get to one person, one vote, so you look to see 16 if a fairly drawn alternative plan could ameliorate or 17 prevent retrogression. In our example, we've got to put 18 non-minorities in. The minority percentage is going to come 19 down; it's going to look like it's retrogressive. The 20 standard is, could we have done something to prevent that? 21 And if the people aren't there, you can't do it. The burden 22 is on the County to show that we couldn't do any better. We 23 have the burden under Section 5. 24 Now, one of the things that may happen is 25 Section 2 -- and I mentioned earlier about that -- is a 20 1 standard that says you can't discriminate. That's much 2 broader than not retrogressing. Retrogressing says you 3 can't go backwards; you can't be any worse. You can have 4 discriminatory plans that are not retrogressive, but Section 5 2 says you can't discriminate. Any person who is affected 6 adversely and who's protected by the Voting Rights Act can 7 bring a suit, so you have suits brought by individuals under 8 Section 2. The Department of Justice may bring a suit. I 9 think one thing that's going to happen, as the Department of 10 Justice role has been reduced and minimized, is we're going 11 to have more suits brought under Section 2, including suits 12 brought by the Department of Justice, because before, the 13 Department of Justice would say, "This plan violates Section 14 2; we're not going to preclear it under Section 5." Supreme 15 Court said you can't do that. That's not the standard. Now 16 they have to approve it under Section 5, and then turn 17 around and sue you under Section 2. So, we don't want to 18 violate Section 2 or Section 5, but our first hurdle is 19 Section 5. 20 Now, the second issue I want to talk about 21 here is some changes -- we've talked about this before -- in 22 Section 2. You can't have the purpose or effect of reducing 23 -- you can't discriminate. You can't reduce the opportunity 24 of a protected minority or racial group to participate in 25 the electoral process and to elect candidates of choice. 21 1 Doesn't mean that people have to -- a group has to elect or 2 be able to elect. They have to have the opportunity. And, 3 basically, it's a nondiscrimination standard. And, as a 4 practical matter, what it means is that you can't pack or 5 fracture minority voting, extra strength. Let me see. The 6 packing is where you take all the minorities -- and let's 7 say African Americans as an example, and there are very few 8 African Americans in Kerr County. But, let's say in the 9 city that you have a big block of African Americans. You 10 put every single one, or as many as you can cram into a 11 single district, so it's a 90 percent African American 12 district. 13 Now, they certainly have the opportunity to 14 elect candidates of their choice. They've got 90 percent of 15 the potential voters. On the other hand, if you want to 16 reduce their potential voting strength, that's a way to do 17 it, 'cause you put them all in one district, and they just 18 cancel each other out. Whereas if you had drawn a 50 or 19 60 percent African American district, then those other 30, 20 40 percent, whatever it happens to be, could have an 21 influence in some other district and their votes would count 22 more. So, that's one way you can reduce people's voting 23 strength, is by packing them so that it's very -- you know, 24 almost exclusively a single-race district. 25 The other thing is you can't fracture, and 22 1 this is sort of the opposite of packing. We've got our 2 compact minority group, and you can put them in a district 3 and they could control the district; maybe 50 percent, 4 55 percent, 60 percent of a district. But, you come through 5 and you chop them in two and you put half here and half 6 there; they don't have any power in either district. Can't 7 do that. Those are the things you have to avoid. 8 So, in 1991 we had two things we had to worry 9 about, the things we've been talking about: Section 5, you 10 can't retrogress; Section 2, you can't discriminate, and 11 that's really all we had to be concerned about. And then 12 you had a case out of North Carolina called Shaw vs. Reno, 13 and this is the Shaw vs. Reno district, the 12th 14 Congressional District in North Carolina. If you look at 15 this yellow district, that runs about 165 miles. And, I'm 16 trying to remember -- I think I-87 is the name of the road, 17 but I -- I may have the interstate highway number wrong, but 18 it runs largely along the interstate highway. Sometimes 19 it's no wider than the right-of-way of the highway; 20 sometimes even less than that. In fact, there are a couple 21 of places where it comes down to a single point; it has no 22 width at all. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Bob, that looks like 24 my precinct. 25 MR. HEATH: It does not. I've seen your 23 1 precinct. It doesn't look anything like it. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's very similar to 3 that. 4 MR. HEATH: Yours isn't 165 miles long. 5 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Wait till we get 6 through with it. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, wait a week. 8 MR. HEATH: But, if you look at District 6, 9 it's cut into three pieces by that. And, as I say, there 10 are at least two places where it comes to a single point, 11 and that really bothered the Supreme Court. That case went 12 up, was decided in 1993. Actually, I happened to be at the 13 Supreme Court the day that case was argued, and Robinson 14 Everett, who was the plaintiff's lawyer for the Shaw 15 plaintiffs, had a map, this map up there. And, I tell you, 16 he just referred to that all the time he was back there. 17 I'm sure the Court was getting a little tired of it. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Bob, can I ask a 19 question before you leave this? What is the difference 20 between this and gerrymandering? 21 MR. HEATH: Well, this is gerrymandering, and 22 it's what -- this is what we call racial gerrymandering, 23 because what this is is a district drawn overwhelmingly on 24 the -- on the basis of race. And, essentially, what's 25 happening is you're picking up clumps of black voters that 24 1 are widely separated. Some are rural, some are urban and so 2 forth, and the shape of the district is governed pretty 3 exclusively by race. Now, Shaw is a controversial opinion. 4 There have been about four or five opinions after Shaw -- 5 five or six, I guess, 'cause one came out last week. Every 6 one that has gone to the substantive issues has been 5/4. 7 Last week it was 4/5. One of the -- the five switched to 8 the four, which sort of drew the line. 9 And, we're going to see if we -- at some 10 point, I think we have a slide which will show you that 11 difference. But, anyway, in Shaw, that changed the law, 12 because before we had those first two things, which were 13 what we had in 1991: Can't violate Section 5, can't violate 14 Section 2. No retrogression, no discrimination. And, now 15 we have a 14th amendment Shaw vs. Reno concern, which is, is 16 race the predominant consideration in drawing the plan? If 17 so, is the race -- is race a narrowly -- is the plan a 18 narrowly tailored means of addressing the compelling 19 governmental interest? And, the effect of that -- well, 20 I'm -- if I can go back, before, in 1991, when I'd go in and 21 talk to a commissioners court, I'd say, "You've got to worry 22 about the Voting Rights Act, and that's really all that's 23 out there. One person, one vote, and here's what you have 24 to do to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Anything on 25 this side of the line is okay." 25 1 Now, for commissioners courts, it may not 2 have been easy, sometimes politically or whatever, 3 practically, to get on this side of the line, but anyway, 4 you had lots of options. You still have that line. You 5 still have the Voting Rights Act. Now have you Shaw vs. 6 Reno coming the other way and saying, "But you can't use 7 race as a predominant consideration." Voting Rights Act, 8 you have to consider race. Race can't be predominant. And 9 this little area in between my hands is what's permissible 10 now. So, under Shaw vs. Reno, race can't be the predominant 11 factor in the redistricting process to the subordination of 12 a traditional district. 13 Essentially, they felt -- you think back to 14 that picture that we just saw. Compactness, continuity, 15 those sorts of traditional districting principles went out 16 the window, and we're subordinated to race. Bizarrely 17 shaped districts like that one we saw are not 18 unconstitutional, per se. It's okay to have a bizarrely 19 shaped district, but the bizarre shape may be evidence that 20 race was the predominant consideration. One of ours was a 21 bizarre shape, but they're not necessarily illegal. If race 22 is the predominant consideration, the plan still may be 23 permissible if a race is narrowly tailored -- or the plan is 24 narrowly tailored to address a compelling governmental 25 interest, such as compliance with the Voting Rights Act. 26 1 And, if -- we're going to find that a plan is narrowly 2 tailored if it uses race no more than is necessary. So, we 3 can use race, we can consider it as a predominant 4 consideration if we have to do so to comply with the law, 5 but we have to use it no more than is necessary. 6 One of the ways we do this is take -- we 7 adopt redistricting criteria, and that's something we're 8 going to recommend to the Court that it do. Some of the 9 sort of redistricting criteria that we suggest -- and these 10 are things that are traditional districting principles, so 11 that if do you these and if you pay attention to them, 12 you're not going to subordinate traditional districting 13 principles; you're going to be using them. You're going to 14 be considering them along with the considerations that you 15 have to do to comply with the Voting Rights Act. We're 16 going to use identifiable boundaries, something the people 17 can understand and know where the boundaries are. It's not 18 going to be something that the people can't understand. You 19 know, maybe a highway, a river, a creek, something that is 20 understandable and identifiable. 21 We may say, okay, we want to maintain 22 communities of vicinity in neighborhoods; we don't want to 23 split these communities up where we don't have to. A normal 24 one is using whole voting precincts. In a county the size 25 of Kerr, you really can't do that, because your voting 27 1 precincts are so big compared to the size of the 2 commissioner precincts. You move a whole voting precinct 3 and it's going to be too many people; it's going to throw 4 you out of balance. But, where we can't use a whole voting 5 precinct, we want to draw the district so that we can have 6 sensible precincts, ones where there's going to be a polling 7 place, where we can have a sufficient number of voters to 8 make it practical. 9 For example, in Harris County, because of the 10 bizarre lines that were drawn 10 years ago for state 11 representative and state senate and congressional districts, 12 they went from something over 600 voting precincts in Harris 13 County -- huge county, lots of and lots of voting precincts. 14 But, they went from 600, because of all these weird and ugly 15 and bizarre lines, to 1,300, because you can't have more 16 than one state representative district in a polling -- in a 17 voting precinct, or one commissioner precinct or so forth. 18 And, when these lines all started intersecting, you had to 19 draw lots of precincts. There are plenty of precincts in 20 Harris County, or were in 1993, that didn't have anybody in 21 it. There were highway intersections that were precincts. 22 There were parts of streets, you know, like one line went 23 down the left side of the street, another went down the 24 right side of the street, so the middle of the street was 25 the voting precinct. Because, you know, you had to use that 28 1 area; you had to put it somewhere. 2 When they had a runoff in one of these very 3 bizarrely-shaped districts, because they didn't pay 4 attention to what the voting precincts were going to look 5 like, the election administrator left -- and I forget the 6 exact number, but it's something like 10 or 12 voting 7 precincts out of the election, 'cause -- didn't realize they 8 were there. And, you almost had to get a magnifying glass 9 to find out. I think very few, if any, people live there; 10 didn't make any substantial difference. Didn't change the 11 results, or wouldn't have. But, you don't want to get in 12 that situation. You want your precincts to make sense. 13 Typically, you're going to base your plan on 14 existing precincts. That's what normally happens. You 15 don't have to do it that way, but you have precincts where 16 people have been serving -- the Commissioners have been 17 serving the people, J.P.'s have been serving, and so 18 typically you start with that as a starting point. You're 19 going to file precincts of relatively equal size. The 20 Constitution requires this. That's certainly a traditional 21 redistricting principle, one that's required. We want 22 districts that are compact and contiguous, so that they 23 don't run all over everywhere and they do touch one another. 24 Typically, you keep the existing Commissioners in their 25 precincts. 29 1 MS. REDDINGTON: Except Commissioner Baldwin; 2 he's going to move. 3 MR. HEATH: Right now, you don't have to 4 adopt that criteria, but typically -- normally that's the 5 one -- that's something that's recognized by the Supreme 6 Court and other courts. And, in fact, what has happened 7 over the years is that Commissioners and their constituents 8 have developed relationships and bonds, and there's 9 something to be said for keeping that. 10 And, finally, not last but not least, but 11 certainly among these, we're going to make sure we have a 12 plan that complies with the Voting Rights Act. Maybe a 13 narrowly tailored plan, but we're going to comply with the 14 Voting Rights Act. We're going to do all these at the same 15 time so that we're complying with the Voting Rights Act, and 16 if we do all of these together and keep everything in 17 balance, we can comply with the Voting Rights Act and comply 18 with Shaw vs. Reno. 19 Now, I'm not going to go through here -- this 20 is -- I'm just going to skip through, 'cause I've sort of 21 done this; we've talked about what some of these things are. 22 And, to get to North Carolina, where we had -- that was our 23 -- now, remember our original one? That one's a silhouette 24 of it there. And, where they are now is something closer to 25 that, and that was upheld by the Supreme Court just this 30 1 last week. Now, they're still putting blacks in 2 predominantly black districts; I think it's 47 percent 3 black. It elects a black congressman, Melvin Watt. It is 4 a -- but it's one that is not the same sort of bizarre 5 shape. It's not as bizarre, and it's something that the 6 Supreme Court felt was permissible. 7 Let me give you a little -- something a 8 little closer to home. This is one of my favorites, and it 9 is because I've worked with this a lot. I was not involved 10 in this particular suit, which is the Texas congressional 11 districts, but I have represented jurisdictions in the same 12 area where we're comparing our districts to those. The top 13 is the congressional districts in Harris County, Texas, 14 drawn by the Legislature in 1991. The red district is a 15 predominantly Hispanic district. The light green district 16 is a predominantly black district. And, that went to the 17 Supreme Court; the case is Bush vs. Vera, and the Supreme 18 Court said that's unconstitutional. There's nothing compact 19 about that. The more you blow that up, the worse it looks. 20 On a small scale, it sort of pushes together and looks more 21 compact. The bigger it is, the more you see all the zigs 22 and zags. 23 And, just as a story, back in 1991 or so, or 24 '92, when we had our computer and our redistricting 25 software -- and we had a different software system at that 31 1 time, because computers were not as advanced, software 2 wasn't advanced. But, we just had all the problem in the 3 world getting that in, and so we called the software 4 manufacturer. We said, "We're having a real problem. Can 5 you help us?" And they said, Well, by any chance, are you 6 trying to load the 18th or 29th Congressional District of 7 Texas? Or the 30th, which happens to be in Dallas. We 8 said, "Well, as a matter of fact, we are." That's exactly 9 what our problem was. He said, "The machine won't take it." 10 It was too complicated; there were too many polygons to make 11 it work. Well, software's better now, but the law was more 12 restrictive. 13 So, what happened is the Supreme Court 14 overturned that, came down, and the Court drew the plan. 15 And, that's the plan they drew, and you can see that it's 16 much more compact. But, it's -- I was trying to see what 17 the next slide is. Let me tell you what this is. The Court 18 drew this to be a predominant -- that's to be predominantly 19 minority districts. The red one, as you recall, was 20 predominantly Hispanic. The Hispanic population in Houston 21 generally runs, like, right through here. The light green 22 one is African American. You have African American 23 population here, then up here, which is 5th -- looks like 24 shadow pictures -- and some over in this area, which is 25 particularly the Acres Homes area. This -- and we called it 32 1 a motor boat propeller -- is predominantly black. If you 2 look at the division between 50 percent and above black 3 areas, 50 percent and above Hispanic areas, it runs right 4 there, and it runs right over here and here. And the Court 5 knew that and very deliberately drew that to be 6 predominantly black and -- and predominantly Hispanic 7 districts, but they just didn't go to that sort of extreme. 8 So, you can draw a predominantly minority 9 district; it's okay. The Court felt that it was 10 appropriate. And this is -- now, this is not -- every 11 member of that court was appointed by a Republican President 12 of the United States. Very conservative court. It's a 13 3-judge Federal District Court in Harris County, but they 14 deliberately drew minority districts, but you don't go to 15 that extreme. Interestingly, here -- you know, that's about 16 the same level of zigs and zags and bizarreness and so 17 forth. Nobody did anything about that. They really weren't 18 challenged. But, that's Tom Delay's district. This is Ken 19 Bentsen's district. This is a political gerrymander. It's 20 okay. Not a racial one. Court didn't have a problem with 21 it. 22 We said earlier that narrowly tailoring a 23 plan means that we're going to use race no more than is 24 necessary. What we want to do to have a plan and to make 25 our plan work and to make the process work, so that at the 33 1 end of the process we're going to get precleared with the 2 Department of Justice, we're going to avoid Section 2 and 3 Section 5 problems, and we're going to involve the -- avoid 4 the Shaw vs. Reno problem, is we're going to plan ahead. 5 We're going to build a record. We're going to keep track of 6 everything we do. We're going to be aware of our legal 7 obligations and responsibilities, and that's one of the 8 purposes of the talk today. We're going to adopt criteria 9 that reflects additional redistricting principles, including 10 consideration of race to the extent required to meet 11 obligations under the Voting Rights Act. We're going to pay 12 attention to our criteria when we're drawing the plan. Any 13 -- if a citizen submits a plan, we're going to consider it 14 and evaluate it against the criteria. Our own plan, we're 15 going to evaluate it against the criteria, see how well it 16 stacks up. 17 When we finally come out with a plan, 18 whatever it is, we're going to look at it in terms of the 19 criteria, make a written report on it. We're going to make 20 sure that analysis is furnished to the governmental body 21 before it votes on the plan. It's not going to be an 22 afterthought. It's not going to be after the fact. It's 23 before the Commissioners vote. We want to avoid truly 24 bizarre-shaped districts. And that's going to, we think, 25 take us through so that we can walk the tightrope between 34 1 doing what we need to do to comply with the Voting Rights 2 Act and avoiding excessive consideration of race that gets 3 us into trouble under Shaw vs. Reno. As I said, it's a 4 tightrope. Can't lean too far one way, can't lean too far 5 the other. So, the steps in how we go through it, Penny is 6 going to talk with you. 7 MS. REDDINGTON: You're getting a real crash 8 course in redistricting. I hope that you're all awake. I'm 9 going to -- 10 AUDIENCE: Glad we're not in Harris County. 11 MS. REDDINGTON: That's true. I hope it will 12 be better here. I'm going to move fairly fast through this, 13 but the point I'm going to try to emphasize as I go along is 14 that this is very much a step-by-step process. If we're 15 going to do it the right way, we're going to follow the 16 steps in the right order so that when we finish, we have a 17 product, we have a plan that meets the needs of the County, 18 but that also satisfies the Voting Rights Act and the 19 constitutional one person, one vote requirement. Anyone can 20 jump up and draw a plan, but we want plans that are -- plans 21 we can evaluate fairly, plans that really fit the needs of 22 the County. 23 So, here are some of the steps that we're 24 going to go through, and just to give you an idea of what a 25 short period of time we have, I want to show you this 35 1 timeline. And I'm going to just pop all of these things up 2 and -- up here first, because it takes a lot of time if you 3 don't, and then give you an idea of how little time we have. 4 Is that the last one, or did I go too far? 5 MR. HEATH: That's it. 6 MS. REDDINGTON: Okay. Now, we've got the 7 census data in March, mid-March. We've been -- we've been 8 working, though, for several months to develop our teams of 9 redistricting attorneys, to develop our support staff who 10 handle the computers, and the paralegal and secretarial 11 support that we need to be out on the road almost every day 12 working with counties to get this done. We got the data in 13 March. Here it is in April, and we are making the 14 presentation of the initial assessment to this county. 15 We're trying to give you an overview of the legal process 16 and the legal -- of the process and the legal issues. We're 17 going to ask the Court today to adopt some criteria and 18 rules to govern the process, and we hope within about a 19 month to be back with a first draft plan for the 20 Commissioners Court and the Advisory Committee and any 21 members of the public who are interested to look at and 22 evaluate. It probably won't be perfect. It would be 23 wonderful if it made everyone happy, but it will be a 24 starting point. It will be a place to begin, and we can get 25 some very meaningful input at that time. 36 1 We will then, a few weeks later, have a 2 public hearing. This will be a formal public hearing; we'll 3 have a court reporter again. It will be a public hearing on 4 the plan with any adjustments or alterations that we may 5 have made. Now, we also want to leave open the process for 6 the public, should there be individuals or groups who would 7 like to provide proposed plans to the Commissioners Court 8 for their consideration, but we need to set a cutoff date 9 for that, because we are looking at a very strict deadline 10 here. We would like to have the County adopt its final plan 11 by early August, preferably August 1st. That will then give 12 us a month to -- to put the submission together that we will 13 send to the Department of Justice, the submission which asks 14 for preclearance from them for our new plan. 15 They take a while to do their work. They are 16 covered up with submissions from -- from local governments 17 all over the country, and so they automatically have 60 days 18 from the time they receive your plan until they have to 19 respond. However, they can buy themselves another 60 days 20 by waiting until about the 55th day that they've got your 21 plan, and then calling and saying -- or sending a letter and 22 saying, "We need more information. We just need to clarify 23 some things; we want a little more information." So, we're 24 going to be a little bit pessimistic and we're going to 25 assume that the Justice Department will use their entire 120 37 1 days to evaluate the Kerr County plan and decide whether or 2 not it will receive preclearance. It's important to have 3 that plan precleared, because we want it in place in time 4 for the primaries for the elections for people who are 5 wanting to file and run for office; they need to know where 6 they live, what precinct they live in and what offices they 7 might want to run for. 8 So, we are -- we have this what I call 9 "drop-dead" deadline of, really, October 1st that we must 10 have the -- have the plan in to the Justice Department. We 11 would prefer to give ourselves a little bit more time; you 12 never know what can happen. So, September 1 is really when 13 we need to have the plan in, the submission in. So, we're 14 asking the Court to consider acting by August 1st, if they 15 can. So, that's our window of opportunity. And every other 16 local government in the state and in the south that elects 17 from single-member districts, representatives, is looking at 18 the same timeline. So, that's why we're all so busy. 19 Now, your County also -- your County Clerk 20 also may want to make some changes to election precincts, 21 and we'll work with your County Clerk on that should that be 22 necessary. My guess is that you may have some precincts 23 right now that are not working well for you. You may have 24 some that are a little overpopulated, a little 25 underpopulated, you may have some lines that aren't really 38 1 clear. So, there may be some adjustments that you would 2 want to make, even if we weren't doing redistricting. But, 3 because we're going to be tweaking those election precincts 4 some, perhaps, ourselves, we may want to do it all at one 5 time, so we'll work with you on that. And the timeline's a 6 little different, but it's the same idea; it needs to be 7 done this fall. 8 So, we have been working to conform the 9 initial assessment for Kerr County. We've been looking at 10 the data, calculating the deviation. And, while we're here 11 today, we want to have a little time to talk about some -- 12 maybe some historical issues that are important in this 13 county, some things that maybe have led to you having the 14 kind of lines that you have now, some problems that may have 15 become apparent over the last decade, things that you think 16 we should know about. We don't know your county as well as 17 you do. We don't know your county very well at all, 18 although I know Bob has worked here some, and I like to 19 visit here. But, we don't know your issues the way you do, 20 and so we have to look to you and to the members of the 21 Commissioners Court for guidance. 22 We're going to suggest in just a moment that 23 the Court adopt some, basically, redistricting criteria. 24 There may be other things -- we think we've pretty well 25 covered the waterfront on these, but there may be something 39 1 more that the Court would like to include. I won't go over 2 all of that again. And then we want to adopt -- we want the 3 Court to adopt some guidelines for the public, should the 4 public want to submit plans. The plans really need to be 5 written. It's almost impossible to verbally describe a plan 6 that people can evaluate accurately and fairly. So, we 7 would ask the Court to consider requiring the plans be 8 written, and require that the plans show the total 9 population of the county, and for each precinct, and the 10 voting age population of minorities for each precinct, 11 because that's what the Justice Department looks at. And, 12 if that's one of the standards that the County's plan should 13 meet, then that's one of the standards that the public's 14 plan should meet as well. And, it shouldn't draw -- be a 15 plan for just one precinct; it should be a plan for the 16 entire county. You can draw a perfect precinct, but the 17 impact you might have on the rest of the county would mean 18 that you couldn't draw three other precincts that would 19 work. And then we would ask that it be -- conform to the 20 criteria that the Court has adopted. 21 Now, we're going to do our best, and I know 22 the Judge and Commissioners are going to work with us on -- 23 on this. And, I think today is a good example. Our 24 meetings are going to be public meetings. We're going to 25 provide public notice and in a timely manner for those 40 1 meetings. We're going to work with the news media to get 2 information to them. And, someone from the news media just 3 asked me if we had an extra copy of the assessment for the 4 media. We don't; we brought these for the Commissioners, 5 but we can certainly make copies and make this information 6 available, and we're happy to do that for you. It's a -- 7 this is not something that people really know a lot about, 8 and so it's very important to give the background 9 information as well. The Court may, through letters to 10 members of the public, invite them to meetings, or send out 11 newsletters about this. And we'll also -- I know they're 12 going to extend personal invitations, as they have to each 13 of you, to participate in the process. And you may know 14 someone who would be interested who would want to come to 15 one of the public meetings, and so, take it upon yourselves, 16 if you would, to include those people. 17 We're going to ask the Court to set some 18 target dates for the presentation of the -- of the plans, 19 for the public plans that are going to be submitted. We 20 have to have a cutoff at some point, and set a target date 21 for adopting the plans, which we're hoping would be around 22 -- around August 1, and then a target date for submission of 23 the plan. Well, it's obvious we're going to -- we're going 24 to try to draw plans, take note of the legal requirements. 25 We will have public hearings. We're going to look at these 41 1 plans and analyze them carefully and present that 2 information to the Court before it votes on the plans. And 3 then, after we make the submission to the Justice 4 Department, we will be available to help the Court respond 5 to any questions that they might receive from the Justice 6 Department. Sometimes they will just get a phone call. 7 Sometimes some of you -- and your names will all go in to 8 the Justice Department. You may also get a phone call from 9 the Justice Department. They'll want to know whether it was 10 a fair and open process, whether you were able to 11 participate, and so you'll be in a position to respond, and 12 we can help with that if anyone should need that. 13 Now, the question always comes up about 14 justice precincts; that's the J.P./constable precincts. 15 They are not technically representative districts like the 16 commissioners courts, the Commissioners' districts. They 17 are not representatives. The Justice of the Peace is a 18 judicial official. The constable is a law enforcement 19 official. They're not representative, so the one person, 20 one vote standard does not apply to them. They don't 21 represent groups of individuals, and so that doesn't count 22 for them. They can come from districts that are of 23 different sizes of population. But, if we make changes to 24 those precincts -- and I'm assuming that we will, because 25 their lines conform to the Commissioners' precincts -- those 42 1 modifications will require Justice Department approval -- or 2 preclearance. 3 Now, we're going to talk about your county 4 and your numbers. Judge, I don't know if you want to take a 5 break; we've been sitting here for an hour, or if you want 6 to us to move on. It's up to you. 7 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Press on. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Charge. 9 MS. REDDINGTON: Press on, okay. 10 MR. HEATH: This is the last piece. 11 MS. REDDINGTON: Yeah, this is it, and this 12 won't take very long. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: We'll do this module, we'll 14 leave some time for questions, take a break, and then come 15 back and we'll work on criteria, scheduling, and 16 requirements. 17 MS. REDDINGTON: That's good. 18 MR. HEATH: This is -- if you have -- I'm 19 sorry we don't have it for every single person, but if you 20 have the book, it's maybe a little clearer than on the 21 screen, but here's the current Commissioner precincts, and 22 those are the ones that were drawn back in the '90's. And 23 we have -- J.P.'s are the same. 24 MS. REDDINGTON: We need to point out which 25 one's which. 43 1 MR. HEATH: Sure. The precincts -- yeah. 2 Want to do that? 3 MS. REDDINGTON: I think I can do that 4 without getting in the way too much. This is -- let's see. 5 MR. HEATH: Four is down there. 6 MS. REDDINGTON: This is Precinct 4; it's the 7 largest. It's Commissioner Griffin's precinct. And then -- 8 let's see, I have to look at my chart here. This is 9 Precinct 1, this pink one. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The long, narrow one. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The gerrymandered 12 one. 13 MS. REDDINGTON: That's Commissioner 14 Baldwin's precinct. Then, up here in the corner is 3, and 15 then this is 2. How'd y'all come up with this numbering 16 system? Jumping all around. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Just lucky, I guess. 18 MS. REDDINGTON: If you can see the little 19 chart here, that might help. 20 MR. HEATH: So, the first thing we do is -- 21 and perhaps the most important thing we do in determining if 22 we have to redistrict is, how many people live there? Ten 23 years ago, they were all presumably within a 10 percent 24 deviation. They are not any more. Any guesses as to which 25 is the largest and the smallest? You know, here is the -- 44 1 the demographics. As you can see, the largest district is 2 District 4, which is the one on the western end of the 3 county, Commissioner Griffin's. It's about 10 percent -- or 4 7 percent -- 7 and a quarter percent over. Number 3, which 5 is on the eastern end of the county, is about 10 percent 6 under, and that's Commissioner Letz' precinct. Number 1, 7 Commissioner Baldwin's, is just about right. That shape 8 works just fine. And the other, Number 2, Commissioner 9 Williams', is about 5 and a half percent over. So, we want 10 to get the -- we have a deviation of 17.43 percent, a total 11 deviation. From the largest to the smallest, plus 7 to 12 minus 10, ends up at 17.43. Our average precinct size, the 13 ideal is about 10,900, and that's where we want to end up. 14 We can be a little over, we can be a little under. So, we 15 need to be within 10 percent, top to bottom. 16 So, basically, what that means is that 17 Commissioner 4 -- Commissioner Precinct 4 is going to have 18 to lose population. Commissioner Precinct 3 is going to 19 have to gain. Two's going to have to lose a little. One 20 may have to gain or lose a little, as well. And, as -- 21 let's see. This is the same data, except it shows all the 22 different groups. But, as you can see, the others are so 23 small that they're not particularly significant. For 24 example, Hawaiian Pacific Islander; there's 16 of those in 25 the county. There are 12 other, 154 American Indians, so 45 1 forth. 2 Let's go back for a minute and look at 3 minority population, because that's one of the things that 4 we want to be aware of, because that's setting our benchmark 5 for Section 5 preclearance. And, the more relevant of the 6 two charts there is the bottom one, because that's voting 7 age population. You recall, we're looking at total 8 population at the top. That's everybody. The bottom, we're 9 looking at voting age population, persons 18 years of age 10 and above, 'cause those are the only people that are 11 potentially eligible to register and to vote. Precinct 3 is 12 the only precinct that has any appreciable minority 13 population concentration, about 31 percent Hispanic. It has 14 the largest African American concentration of all those; 15 that's very small. So, about a third -- little more than a 16 third minority population. We'll want to look at that. 17 Now, that's fairly small, but I would anticipate that we 18 would keep that population in that precinct and try not to 19 reduce those percentages, which should not be very 20 difficult. 21 And, let's go back just a minute and look at 22 the -- the maps. This says J.P., but since they're the 23 same, it doesn't really matter. Our Precinct 4 is the 24 largest; we're going to have to lose population. Precinct 3 25 is the smallest, sort of the gold -- is that what you call 46 1 it? -- or mustard color there on the right. It's going to 2 have to gain population. Two's going to have to lose a 3 little, which is the yellowish color. Now, one of our 4 problems is that 3 is in between our biggest population and 5 our smallest population. Precinct 3 can get some from 6 Precinct 2, but it's going to need some more. Precinct 4 is 7 going to have to lose some. So, we can move it -- move 8 people through Precinct 1 over to the ones on the east, and 9 what you would do is you just put some people -- you know, 10 move your line -- both of your lines, I guess, to the west a 11 little bit. So, you get a few people out of 4, put them 12 into 1. That may make 1 a little too big, and you take some 13 people out of 1 and put them into 3. 14 We haven't made any decisions, and it's not 15 time to make any decisions about where all that's going to 16 occur. But, as a practical matter, you know, just off the 17 top of my head, I would assume that it's likely to occur in 18 Kerrville, 'cause that's where the people are. We can move 19 those lines a lot out in the rural areas, and it's not going 20 to affect many people. We can get some people and move them 21 substantially, and maybe we can do it out that way, but you 22 can get an awful lot of people moving within two blocks in 23 the city. So -- 24 AUDIENCE: Is that where the black rectangle 25 is, the city? 47 1 MR. HEATH: Yeah, the top one is the city. 2 And, you know, when we have -- and we will print out great 3 big maps and stuff like that, and it's always a lot easier 4 to see, you know, when it's not projected, 'cause you lose 5 some focus there. But -- and we'll have -- we can get, you 6 know, close ups down to a single block so you can see what's 7 going on. 8 Now, let's move forward, and one of the 9 things we'll be looking at, because we need to be concerned 10 about minority concentrations, is where minority citizens 11 live. This is the Hispanic population. And, as we get into 12 more detail, we can see more. The darker the color -- and 13 that's sort of a reddish color -- the greater the Hispanic 14 population. The very dark is over 60 percent. Pretty dark 15 red is 50 to 60. There's one that's sort of a bright color, 16 or bright red, 40 to 50. Pinkish, 20 percent to 40. So, 17 you can see that the Hispanic population is spread out all 18 over the county, but the basic population is in Kerrville, 19 and basically in here and down there. 20 AUDIENCE: This is the Hispanic? 21 MR. HEATH: Hispanic. 22 AUDIENCE: Okay. It says "Black" over here 23 in the corner. 24 MR. HEATH: This is Hispanic. 25 AUDIENCE: Lower left. 48 1 MR. HEATH: Okay. Well, this should be 2 Hispanic. That's Hispanic. They must have -- let's see. 3 The black will be the next, and it's much smaller, 'cause 4 there's so few blacks. And, basically, the black 5 population -- largest part of that is right in here. 6 MS. REDDINGTON: We should point out, Bob, 7 that this is -- this is a little bit confusing. This is 8 very dark in color here, and intensity, indicating that over 9 60 percent of the people that live in this census tract are 10 black; however, there may only be one or two people. 11 Remember, I said some of the census tracts are very large, 12 but only have a few people in them, so there may only be a 13 couple of people living here, and one or -- and both of them 14 are black, for instance, and that would make it so it's a 15 little misleading, a little confusing when you try to 16 analyze it. 17 MR. HEATH: Right. 18 MS. REDDINGTON: The same with the Hispanic. 19 It's confusing, and so what we have to do is look at the 20 actual numbers by census tract. 21 MR. HEATH: Right. In fact, in this -- 22 MS. REDDINGTON: This is big, but there may 23 not be many people there. 24 MR. HEATH: Right. I'm trying -- I think -- 25 and this doesn't show anybody. This is a census block right 49 1 here along the river, and it's big. And, in the '90 census, 2 that was 100 percent Hispanic. It looks like it's zero 3 percent now, but there was only one person. 4 MS. REDDINGTON: Must have moved. 5 MR. HEATH: I represented a city in their 6 litigation, which it's a large district, and the plaintiffs 7 kept submitting maps, and they would find every Hispanic 8 precinct imaginable -- or census block imaginable to put in 9 their proposed district except that one which they needed to 10 be a corridor to get from one spot to another. And, I sort 11 of wonder why they didn't try and get that in. And you 12 look, and there's only one person in it. And, in fact, 13 there may not have even been one, because occasionally the 14 Census Bureau assigns some people for privacy reasons and 15 all. Sometimes they just sort of arbitrarily put a person 16 in a block. And, statistically, it doesn't make any 17 difference; it's not that big of a deal, but there's just 18 one person, and so it looks like a very large block -- looks 19 very Hispanic, but, in fact, it isn't. Now, as a practical 20 matter, we know there is significant population in this area 21 and down in that area, both of which are in Precinct -- 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Three. 23 MR. HEATH: Three, yeah. Precinct 3 is going 24 to have to get a little bigger. But, as I say, I suspect 25 most of the population will probably be gained and lost in 50 1 Kerrville. Doesn't have to be that way, but that's 2 generally the easiest way to do it. 3 MS. REDDINGTON: We should, too, point out 4 that when the -- when the minority precinct -- or the 5 precinct with the greatest minority population is the most 6 underpopulated precinct, then when you begin to pick up 7 people to put into that precinct, you have to be very 8 careful that you don't dilute, and so just a practical 9 problem that we'll have to deal with. 10 MR. HEATH: Right, because you're going to 11 have to put people in. If you just put Anglos, then that 12 Hispanic percentage is automatically going to go down. 13 MS. REDDINGTON: So, it makes it a little 14 tougher than it could be. 15 MR. HEATH: Yeah. So -- but that's where 16 they'll have to be. It's not a whole lot of people that 17 need to be moved. By now, we have a pretty good idea where 18 they are. But, you know, that's what our task is going to 19 be. We're about 17 percent deviation; we need to get that 20 under 10. We want to get it as close as we reasonably can, 21 and do it without discriminating, without violating the 22 Voting Rights Act, and without creating sort of bizarre 23 districts that will cause problems under Shaw vs. Reno. So, 24 I think we're done with this part. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Before we take a quick break, 51 1 does anyone have any questions of Bob or Penny as a result 2 of the overall or the Hill Country -- Pat Dye? 3 MS. DYE: I have one question. Historically, 4 the Commissioners Court has always tried to have each 5 Commissioners Court -- each Commissioner precinct reach the 6 city. 7 MR. HEATH: Mm-hmm. 8 MS. DYE: Is this going to be -- can we do that 9 this time? 10 MR. HEATH: I would think so. And they do 11 now? 12 MS DYE: Yes. 13 MR. HEATH: And, in fact -- 14 MS. DYE: 'Cause they, all four, come in. 15 MR. HEATH: I don't remember exactly what the 16 population of Kerrville is, but I think you'll find -- 17 MS. DYE: I'd say 17,000. 18 MR. HEATH: -- enough people to draw a 19 district, unless you get into -- 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: About 20,300. 21 MR. HEATH: You could theoretically draw a 22 district without coming into Kerrville, but -- 23 MS. DYE: You were saying that's where the 24 population was. 25 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Precinct's compact, 52 1 though, so it's almost impossible to -- 2 MR. HEATH: That's right. And, as I say, it 3 is very -- it is much easier to work it all out where they 4 come into the city, because they're -- you know, those 5 little, bitty blocks in the city have as many people as 6 these huge census blocks that contain ranches and similar 7 lands. 8 MR. BUTTERS: Is there a number that is 9 considered to be retrogressive in establishing minority? 10 MR. HEATH: No, there's no real magic bullet 11 or -- either in retrogression or in what districts will be 12 discriminatory under Section 2. You can't say, in every 13 circumstance, that a district has to be -- a minority 14 district has to be, say, 65 percent or 50 percent or 15 whatever. We know that right now, voting age population 16 Hispanics, or Hispanic voting age population percentage in 17 District 3 is about 30 percent. If we're at 30 percent, 18 we're not going to be retrogressive, 'cause we're not going 19 to be moving backwards. So, to that extent, that's pretty 20 close to a magic number; we want to stay pretty close to 21 that. So, we don't want to move backwards from where we 22 are, if we can. 23 MR. BUTTERS: I didn't know whether it was 24 statistically tied to -- your discussion didn't point out 25 whether it was statistically tied to a population skewness 53 1 change. In the -- let's say, for example, you had changed 2 an arbitrary 5 percent upwards in a particular minority. Do 3 you have to, say, pick some standard deviation from that 4 skewness that has been introduced from the prior -- they're 5 not playing that game? 6 MR. HEATH: No. 7 MR. BUTTERS: Good. 8 MR. HEATH: Well, I say they're not, and I 9 think they're not. Sometimes they play games that leave me 10 wondering, but -- but, no, they typically have not done 11 that. I don't think they will do that. Yes, sir? 12 MR. BUROW: One of the concerns in '91, which 13 is -- I think that's the first time this county ever went 14 into the urban area like they did -- 15 MR. HEATH: Uh-huh. 16 MR. BUROW: -- was the rural vote versus 17 the -- versus the urban vote. 18 MR. HEATH: Yeah. 19 MR. BUROW: Do you have any statistics, like, 20 say, Precinct 3, how many of -- of Jonathan's constituents 21 are urban versus rural? 22 MR. HEATH: No, we don't do that. We don't 23 have that. We could figure that out if we could define what 24 we mean by urban or rural. Now, if you say how many are 25 inside Kerrville and inside Ingram or whatever -- 54 1 MR. BUROW: Well, I don't think it really -- 2 it was just a concern at the time, and I don't think it's 3 really materialized to be any kind of problem at all, but 4 it's something that will come up again, I'm sure. 5 MR. HEATH: Sure. It's -- you know, we do 6 not have that, but you could figure it out. Yes, ma'am? 7 MS. BOLIN: I have a question on time. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: We're making a record, so I'm 9 going to ask y'all to identify yourselves by name when you 10 make comments. So, tell us -- 11 MR. BUROW: Clarence Burow. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. 13 MS. BOLIN: Diane Bolin. I'm Deputy Voter 14 Registrar. Is there any way we can move the timeline a 15 little bit so that it will give us a little time before we 16 have to do our mass mailout in December? Otherwise, I'm 17 going to be sending duplicate cards right before the 18 primary. 19 MR. HEATH: Well, we can work today on what 20 the timeline is going to be. Now, the timeline for you to 21 adopt voting precincts is going to be October 1, by state 22 law. You can do it before then, but the last day that you 23 can adopt voting precincts is October 1. 24 MS. BOLIN: So, if we adopted prior to 25 October 1, we could get it to Department of Justice 55 1 beforehand and maybe get them in in time, if they're -- 2 MR. HEATH: Yes. Now, some things -- you 3 know, you can't implement a plan or an election change 4 before you have Department of Justice approval. 5 MS. BOLIN: Right. 6 MR. HEATH: You know, what is implementation? 7 Can you mail out your voter registration cards before that? 8 I think you can, arguably. You know, sometimes -- often 9 people do that, you know. So, you may be taking a risk that 10 you're not going to get precleared, but generally you can 11 determine if that's an acceptable risk. And, you know, it 12 may be that you have to do it again, but you can judge that. 13 And, you know, maybe the percentages are 2 or 3 percent that 14 it's going to be a problem. Maybe it's worth just going 15 ahead and doing it in that case. One of the problems that I 16 don't think is going to affect Kerr County, as a practical 17 matter, but -- but it could, is legislative plans, because 18 the Legislature is going to draw representatives, 19 senatorial, congressional, State Board of Education 20 districts. If -- and, I assure you, those are going to be 21 challenged in court. I'm working with the State on some of 22 that, and there are, I think, seven pending lawsuits right 23 now, and they haven't even passed them. 24 MS. BOLIN: Just in case. 25 MR. HEATH: And, it's a -- so there are going 56 1 to be people that are going to sue. And if one side -- if 2 the Republicans don't sue, the Democrats will, and 3 vice-versa. So, it's -- and, you know, if this minority 4 group doesn't, that minority group will, and maybe some 5 Anglo group under Shaw vs. Reno, so you're going to have all 6 sorts of lawsuits. If the lines change by court order, or 7 if the Legislature goes into special session, or the 8 Legislative Redistricting Board draws plans, that's going to 9 push the time back. Kerr County ought to be all right, 10 because it's not big enough to be its own state 11 representative district. I haven't seen the proposed state 12 representative district plan. I think there's a good chance 13 that it will be in a single state Republican district and 14 will not be split. Likewise, with -- with the state senate, 15 congressional districts, they tend to split more counties, 16 but they're so big, and any district that's going to come 17 out here to the west of the population centers of Austin and 18 San Antonio, I think it's pretty unlikely to split Kerr 19 County. So, you may not be split at all, and it may not 20 matter, but that possibility is there, and that's something 21 that there's no way we can plan on it. And, that's going to 22 cause a lot of problems for you if it happens, 'cause we're 23 going to have to go back and do some -- do some of this 24 again to take care of what the courts have done. 25 MS. BOLIN: I was here during the '91 57 1 redistricting, so it's -- I know what a nightmare it can be. 2 MR. HEATH: Yeah. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions? 4 MS. HARRIS: My name is Amber Harris. 5 Whenever people from the community propose their ideas, can 6 the Kerr County Commissioners Court revise them? 7 MR. HEATH: Well, you know, if you have an 8 idea -- let's say you had a plan and you submit it. And, 9 you know, Commissioners Court could look at it and they 10 could say, "Well, you know, this looks like a really good 11 plan, but we don't like this little piece." And, you know, 12 they can do it, because whatever plan is ultimately adopted, 13 it's going to be their plan. It may come from you, may come 14 from somebody else, it may come from the staff, but they can 15 do -- they can adopt whatever plan they want to. And, they 16 may take a plan from a citizen and say, "This is really 17 good, but we need to switch this for this to make it work, 18 or to make it work better." 19 MS. HARRIS: Thank you. 20 MR. HEATH: That's not an uncommon thing. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone else? 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Judge, in case we're 23 going to lose some of our Advisory Committee members because 24 of the hour, could we maybe go ahead and do the two 25 resolutions right quick so that at least they'll know what 58 1 we're about in that area, and then take our break? Is 2 there -- I think that's what -- 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: I'm trying to save the carpal 4 tunnel syndrome on our court reporter. Is there anyone who 5 has to leave in the next few minutes? Well, let's take a 6 real quick 5-minute stand-up-and-stretch break, and we'll 7 come back. We've got to talk about schedule, criteria, and 8 the requirements for submitting your own plan, as well as 9 talk about the role of the committee. So, let's take a 10 quick 5 minutes and be back at, let's say, 5:32, by that 11 clock. 12 Recess from 5:26 p.m. to 5:32 p.m.) 13 - - - - - - - - - - 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Let's push on, folks. The 15 next issue we're going to take up is one of a general 16 schedule. I would certainly suggest that the Court adopt an 17 August 1st deadline for having the plan adopted by the 18 Court, as far as the Commissioners' precincts, with an 19 October 1st deadline for voting precincts. It's -- it's 20 been suggested that we set a deadline of June 30th for any 21 plans to be submitted to the Court by a member of the 22 general public. Mr. Heath tells me that they will have an 23 initial plan ready for us to consider within about 30 days, 24 and his suggestion, which I think we should follow, is that 25 when they bring the initial plan, then we will schedule a 59 1 public hearing on that initial plan, take comments, and then 2 after that, there will be an opportunity for either 3 revisions of that plan or for the public to submit a plan, 4 which we will then discuss in a subsequent public hearing. 5 So, we're looking at two public hearings, the first one 6 probably sometime in end of May, early in June. Then, the 7 June 30th deadline for submission of any public plans, 8 another public hearing sometime in mid-July, with an 9 August 1st deadline for approval of the Commissioners' 10 precinct plan, and an October 1st deadline for approval -- 11 adoption of the voting precinct plans. Bob, is that 12 accurate -- 13 MR. HEATH: Yes. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: -- accurately represented? 15 Does anyone have any comments or -- or suggestions on that 16 general outline of a schedule? 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I move that we adopt 18 that as a guideline schedule. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 21 Griffin, seconded by Commissioner Williams, that we adopt a 22 general schedule as follows: Adoption of a plan for 23 Commissioners' precincts by August 1st, Year 2001. Adoption 24 of the plan for voting precincts by October 1st, 2001. 25 Public hearing on the initial plan proposed by Mr. Heath and 60 1 his colleagues by not later than June 10th. Deadline -- 2 MS. REDDINGTON: June 15th would give us a 3 little more flexibility. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Deadline for submission of 5 plans from the public of June 30th, with a target date of 6 the second public hearing on the plan by July 15th. Does 7 that meet with your accord? 8 MS. REDDINGTON: That will work. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions or comments? 10 MS. DAVIS: Shouldn't the public plans be 11 considered before they come with their plan by -- what did 12 you say? June the -- 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: June 30th. 14 MS. DAVIS: June 15th? You said public plans by 15 June the 30th. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Mr. Heath's experience, as 17 explained to me, is that the plan that he proposes, which 18 we'll have a public hearing on, will be the one that will 19 spark people to bring in their own plans. 20 MS. DAVIS: I see. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: So, it's really -- 22 MS. DAVIS: Gives them some ideas of how to -- 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Exactly. It becomes a better 24 process if they work off of the professional -- the staff 25 plan, if you will, as opposed to trying to anticipate the 61 1 staff plan. 2 MS. REDDINGTON: We will come with a plan 3 that balances the precincts and complies with the Voting 4 Rights Act, so that's a good starting place. It may not be 5 perfect and there may be some changes that need to be made, 6 but that's a good starting place. If you just start from 7 scratch, it's very hard -- 8 MS. DAVIS: Mm-hmm. 9 MS. REDDINGTON: -- to do that. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other comments? We have 11 a motion and second. All in favor, raise your right hand. 12 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 14 (No response.) 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Next item 16 we're going to take up are the criteria for the -- for 17 redistricting. You all actually have the criteria; they 18 were sent to you in the -- in the first mailing. They were 19 actually handed out to you again in the materials that were 20 in the back when you all came into the room today. You had 21 the criteria, you had a copy of the generic schedule, as 22 well as you had a copy of this preliminary demographic 23 report. So, the criteria that are reflected in the 24 resolution which we're going to consider are the -- 25 essentially, the criteria which you all have already 62 1 received. And, I've handed out a copy of the resolution to 2 each of the members of the Commissioners Court. I want to 3 ask at this time, do any of the Commissioners or the public 4 have any questions or comments regarding the proposed 5 criteria? These are very important for purposes of meeting 6 the Department of Justice scrutiny. 7 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I take it this format 8 in the statement has passed muster many times before? 9 MS. REDDINGTON: Carefully worded, yes, sir. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yes. I move we adopt 11 the resolution as submitted. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 14 Griffin, seconded by Commissioner Letz, that the Court adopt 15 the resolution adopting criteria for the use of the 16 redistricting 2001 process. Again, I will ask you all in 17 the Advisory Committee, do you see anything in the criteria 18 that were previously provided to you or that were handed out 19 today that you have any questions or comments about? These 20 are what we're going to use to evaluate the work product 21 throughout the next two, three months. Okay. Seeing none, 22 do I have any questions or comments from the Commissioners? 23 Okay. If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 24 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 63 1 (No response.) 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. The next 3 item we're going to take up is our guidelines for persons 4 submitting specific redistricting proposals. These were not 5 made available -- I didn't see them before today, but let me 6 just quickly read them to the members of the Advisory 7 Committee. Number 1, plans should be submitted in writing. 8 Number 2, any plan should show the total population and 9 voting age population for African Americans, Hispanics, 10 Asian, Anglo, and other for each proposed Commissioner 11 precinct. Number 3, plans should be submitted by June 30th, 12 2001. Number 4, plans should redistrict the entire county. 13 Number 5, plans should conform to the criteria the Court's 14 just adopted in drawing the Commissioner precincts. 15 So, again, to summarize, if any member of the 16 public wants to submit a plan, and we certainly encourage 17 that and will work with you, it must -- it must be in 18 writing, it must have the breakdowns, voting population, 19 total population, and ethnicity of each Commissioner's 20 precinct, and it must cover the entire county; that is, all 21 four precincts, and it must be submitted by June 30th, Year 22 2001, and it must meet the criteria which the Court has just 23 adopted. That's so when we deal with any plan that comes 24 up, we're dealing with apples and apples. We have a full 25 plan that meets all the requirements that we can look at and 64 1 evaluate and go forward. Does anyone have any comments or 2 questions regarding the proposed requirements? 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, I move the 4 Court adopt the guidelines for persons submitting specific 5 redistricting proposals as presented. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 8 Williams, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin, that the Court 9 approve the guidelines for persons submitting specific 10 redistricting proposals. Any further questions or comments? 11 If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 12 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 14 (No response.) 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. I will be 16 sending out to each of you on the committee copies of the 17 criteria as adopted, and the requirements -- the guidelines 18 for persons submitting plans, so you'll have those available 19 to use as we go forward with the process. 20 MS. DAVIS: And the -- 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Pardon? Someone have a 22 comment? 23 MS. DAVIS: When you said you were going to mail 24 out the criteria that you all have adopted, would you also 25 include in there those dates that you -- 65 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yes, we'll include a schedule 2 of dates, as well. The last issue for discussion is, what 3 is the role of the Advisory Committee? My perception of the 4 Advisory Committee -- first of all, let's make it clear 5 today, so it's understood, that it's an advisory committee. 6 Commissioners Court has the responsibility and the legal 7 obligation and legal liability for adopting the plan, so the 8 plan will be adopted by the Commissioners Court. What I, in 9 particular, am looking to you all for is suggestions as to 10 its workability. You all represent the entire county. 11 There's at least five of you from each of the four 12 precincts, and several at-large. You have the feel for 13 what's on the ground better than, certainly, I do. You have 14 the ability to tell us, "That looks good on paper, but 15 here's a practical problem." You have the ability to tell 16 us, "Well, we've" -- you know, "we've always not liked the 17 fact that we had to go so far to vote." And that's been 18 done before, and that's something that's very important to 19 us. 20 So, my perception of your role is to be as 21 involved as you want to be. We want you to be fully 22 involved, to ask questions, to make suggestions, and to 23 bring to us ways that we can improve the process and result 24 in the best plan, because this plan is going to be the 25 voting roadmap for Kerr County for the next 10 years. Any 66 1 of the Commissioners have any comments, anything they want 2 to add to that? 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just wanted to echo 4 your thoughts, Judge, and say that the representatives from 5 Precinct 1 are by far the smartest bunch in the room. So -- 6 (Laughter.) 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I thank you very much 8 for your advice. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Do any of you all on the 10 committee -- 11 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Is that how you got 12 that weird-shaped precinct? 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wait till you see the 14 next one. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone on the committee 16 have anything? Any thoughts? Any questions? This really 17 needs to be, as much as we can, a dialogue. We are -- yes, 18 Marie? 19 MS. DAVIS: I just know that there are areas, 20 such as out in Precinct 4, where it's almost an 21 impossibility to get a voting precinct, and so I would 22 really like some consideration in those areas where we -- in 23 fact, the -- probably Jannett knows this as well as I do, or 24 better, because we've worked together on it. And -- and 25 Jonathan has some of those problems in his precinct, as 67 1 well. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone else? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think -- just a general 4 comment, that I think everyone needs to -- that if they 5 could kind of keep in mind the boundaries. Currently, we're 6 using everything from telephone lines to streets to rivers 7 and everything else, and I -- and it makes it very difficult 8 for -- I think, for the public to understand where they are, 9 exactly what precinct. So, I think one of the things we 10 need to try, if possible, is to stay to a major road; don't 11 split subdivisions, don't split, you know, ranch roads and 12 things of that nature, because it becomes very confusing to 13 the public. And, I know a lot of my precinct, but I'm sure 14 members of my committee that I appointed, they know areas 15 far better than I do, and I look to them, you know, to help 16 on that area a lot, just to make sure that we're not doing 17 something -- splitting something that shouldn't be split. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anything else? If not, we 19 want to thank you all for coming. We appreciate your 20 service, and we look forward to your input and assistance as 21 we make our way through the process. Thank you all, and we 22 stand adjourned. 23 (Commissioners Court adjourned at 5:45 p.m.) 24 - - - - - - - - - - 25 68 1 STATE OF TEXAS | 2 COUNTY OF KERR | 3 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 4 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 5 County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 6 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 7 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 27th day of April, 8 2001. 9 10 11 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 12 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 13 Certified Shorthand Reporter 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25