At Last, The Adopted Redistricting Map

scottindallas

looks to me that some of those gerrymandered districts have some logic to them. Many of the districts seem to have some homogenous cause, economics and racial make-up. I appreciate that we get a chicken and egg question of which fosters which. Is it better than a district be homogenous, or heterogeneous? I think it may well be a moot question. I'm not endorsing this map, nor comparing it with others. But, it doesn't look that egregious to me.

Mstanley

Open your eyes minorities 36% hispanic 4seats 26% Black 4seats sHHH! We still have 33%White and 7seats.They are to dumb to see us!!!

Hasanmary

They see you but don't want the fight with you.

Anonymous

more like get to the polls, minorities!

Omar Jimenez

Well the good thing is you get to see all of Kleberg in this final map, where the others have cut is off, can't even see my neighorhood in any of the other maps submmitted.

Wylie H.

District 14 looks like the party district.

Brenda Marks

You betcha! That's us.

bbetzen

10-5-2011 was a terrible day at Dallas City Council! We showed the world a side of Dallas that was not pretty.

There is no evidence to indicate that what happened yesterday in the Dallas City Council was any "prettier" than the same redistricting processes 10 or 20 years ago, except for the critical factor that now this process happens in the open, the way it should. In the long run it is certain this transparency will improve the process. It will lessen gerrymandering.

Voters hate gerrymandering. Almost all of the maps submitted by the public to the Dallas Redistricting Commission were more compact, with smaller average district perimeters, than the 35.60 mile average perimeter map that was approved yesterday. If you study the list of 21 maps submitted by the public, and summarized at http://dallasredistricting2011..., you will see that almost all the average perimeters were less than 35.6 miles. These maps were almost all more compact than the map approved 10-5-11.

Gerrymandering will be less and less acceptable to the public as knowledge about gerrymandering grows. Strangely shaped districts are almost never misshapen so as to maximize minority representation. They are almost always formed only to help in the re-election of either an incumbent, or a person they want to follow them. It is the reason for the legislative gridlock plaguing our nation! Legislators fear no negative consequences from voters they have selected themselves during redistricting. They know they will be re-elected no matter what they do or fail to do.

Some could say that the obvious winners yesterday were the large majority of the Anglo council members who will probably keep their city council seats, something totally inconsistent with being only 28% of the population. But the price they, and all of us, pay is a less than efficiently functioning city government due to the unnecessary gerrymandering and misleading representation. We all loose!

Others may claim that our Black Community is the winner. But, with the more compact wPlan03c Map presented by Rawlings, the Black Community would have had three much stronger Black majority districts. The average Black voting age percentage in the three Black majority districts was over 6 percentage points higher on average in the wPlan03c map presented by Mayor Rawlings than in the map finally approved on 10-05-11.

The Rawlings wPlan03c map also has two coalition districts that could each have produced another Black council member. With minor amendments, both of these coalition districts could have even been made significantly stronger to increase this "winnable" potential.

The Dallas Hispanic community, now the largest group in our city, is generally acknowledged as the most overt loosers in yesterday's process. They will do well to achieve 4 positions on the next Dallas City Council when, just by the numbers, they should comfortably have had 5 strong seats. In summary it appears we now have an approved Dallas City Council Map, with over 40 unnecessary miles of boundary lines in it, that significantly weakens any potential we may have had for the minority composition of the next City Council to reflect that of our city.

Consequently thousands of us will be joining together in making valid claims to the Justice Department against the imposition of the Dallas City Council redistricting map selected on 10-5-2011.

As a small bit of the evidence to be submitted, there is a comparison of the approved 10-5-11 map with the wPlan03c map by Mayor Rawlings. It shows what could be possible. It is posted at http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yUzw...

Wylie H.

It seems like the biggest factor that contributes to the Hispanics' status as "loser" in this outcome is that they simply don't vote in large numbers. I tuned into one part of the debate where someone was arguing the point that a district that was less than 75% Hispanic wasn't guaranteed to elect an Hispanic representative.

Also, this whole obsession with trying to make races guaranteed wins by reps of a certain race strikes me as horribly backwards and patronizing. Why not just draw relatively compact districts, respecting communities-in-interest without regard to race?

bbetzen

Wylie, drawing relatively compact districts is exactly what was done in the drawing of wPlan03c that was presented by Rawlings. That is certainly the best and only way to go. Once communites are truly compact, more of a neighborhood atmosphere happens. Voting will increase. The currently gerrymandered districts were designed both by and for people who give big money to campaigns so that they could control those elected. Look at the history of criminal convictions of Dallas City Council Members related to taking money for their votes. It happened in the most gerrymandered districts. I agree with you fully. Gerrymandering is the enemy!

bbetzen

Guilty as charged regarding an obsession. However, I certainly hope the obsession is on something infinitely more important than just one city council redistricting map. Did not the heroes we share from our past fight for the right to vote, and for that vote to count? That is the issue here, not just one map! That map is only important if it improves that right. That is what you and I should be talking about. Gerrymandering never improves the right to vote unless it is authentically done to improve minority representation. That is rare. Do you think we should ignore preparations to present to the Department of Justice other maps that provide more districts for minorities? The map passed 10-5-11 will make minorities fight to maintain the current 7 minority seats. Another map could have provided as many as 10 minority seats around the table, and do it more securely for the next decade! If our ancestors in the Civil Rights movement had been content to say “50% representation is enough” in a town with over 70% minority population, where would you and I be?

Hasanmary

You need to get over it. You seem to be obscess with your map.

Anon

I mean, that's a good theory, but you still would have to comply w/ DOJ rules. Whether that happens automatically with compact districts is up for grabs.On the voter turnout, they have demographics in their favor where it comes to population, but not voting. Many of the older voters are undocumented, and the boom in population is still fairly young. The young of all races have poor turnout. At some point that changes and the white people on the council more or less lose their seats (and their lunches). But yes, I was absolutely floored to know that the future Griggs/Jasso battle would not be a landslide victory in Jasso's favor. I knew the white and economically advantaged voted at much higher rates, just not that much higher.

Chris Danger

Again, congrats to the ship of fools at the I.M. Pei Center For Idiocy for screwing something so simple up..

Fredpmtncreek

I'm guessing you went down to speak at City Hall since you're so vocal here? What was their response? I'm curious?

Gimmeabreak

Cricket. Cricket. Fredp you got it going on. As people like Chris Danger (is that a male stripper name or what), so beautifully demonstrates, those who love to call others a 'ship of fools' usually are those who couldn't paddle a canoe if their lives depended on it.

heart and soul

Mike may have pushed this but make no mistake this is Mary's map. It is meant to quash those that get in the way of her corrupt agenda. All about the money Anglos and all the African-Americans because they are for sale. They will be running Dallas for another ten years.Same as it ever was. I think I feel a lawsuit coming on.

Mr Law

Sue the hell out of them!!!

Omar Jimenez

I think it might be coming.

Hasanmary

Personally, I think that the blacks should file a suit too. Part of the lost population was not due to blacks moving but because the census department change the way people's race is decided. When a baby is born, it takes the race of the father except when blacks are involved but the census decided for some unknown reason to count children mixed with hispanics as hispanics. I have relatives who have always been seen as black until the last census when they were now classified as hispanics. It would be interesting to find out how many of these mixed race people who were previously black are now considered hispanics. I know there are 5 in my family alone.

Los Politico

While I don't agree with having so few compact districts (what happened to that requirement?) I think it's mostly livable and justifiable. The exception is District 3. District 3 has 5% more residents than average, apparently to ensure a small black plurality. It would have been very easy for 2% of the population to be shifted into the 4th and another 2% into the 8th-- the 3 districts touch. Then all 3 districts would have been about 1% from the average, but district 3 would become plurality Hispanic.

The African American council-members have cost themselves a lot of political capital for a seat they probably wont be able to hold for more than 2 election cycles. The Molina-Kimball-Carter-SOC area is growing increasingly Hispanic as African Americans move to Lancaster and points south. And if the DOJ gets involved and strikes it down they could very well find themselves in a situation where they have to run against each other.

Sybils_Beaver

how close to merten's entry is this?

Gosspl

Wow. Way to split whole neighborhoods (Gayborhood, Lakewood, M-Streets, Knox-Henderson, Deep Ellum, etc). That's how you build a great city - split up the citizens. Congrats again to our new Mayor. May he only serve for one term.

Oak Cliff Res

That split has been there for over a month, even at the redistricting level. There were 2 public forums held for you to make that comment, but as most people here "a day late, a dollar short and trying to blame someone else..."

Los Politico

Lakewood is clearly all in district 9, as it had been.

Jason

Actually, Lakewood is split between District 14 & 9, which is the same as it's always been. District 14 & 9 are divided by Skillman, D14 going west & D9 going east towards the lake. D9 only goes as far south as Gaston. D14 encompasses the southern part of Lakewood including Hollywood-Santa Monica (aka Hollywood Heights) and continues over to grab onto Lower Greenville. D14 is Angela Hunt's district (and mine). I believe D9 is Sheffie Kadane.

That's not fair: this "midwestern transient" knows where Lakewood ends and Lakewood Heights begins. It's the lifelong Dallasites I know who tend to get it wrong.

Jason

Los Politico

Actually, Lakewood is the neighborhood west of the Lake, east of Abrams, north of Gaston, and south of Mockingbird. All of that area is in 9. Hollywood Heights, the C streets, Swiss Avenue, the M Streets, Munger Place, Lakewood heights, etc are all distinct neighborhoods.

You are referring to the "lakewood" of realtor speak and midwestern transients.