02 Redistrict Assessmnt - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

An early role for the Citizens Advisory Committee is the development of 'criteria' for the reapportionment process. In conjunction with the City's City Council, criteria for any eventual plan should be identified by the Committee and subsequently used to 'judge' or' score' any plans that will be considered by the Committee and the Court. These criteria should include the following standards, and may include other standards of local concern: Any plan should insure that recognized minority populations, or 'communities of interest' remain intact within a single electoral unit to the greatest extent possible. Only where total minority populations are sufficiently large and dispersed to allow a significant minority impact on more than a single city ward should minority populations be divided between more than city ward. Any plan should not, however, attempt to unreasonably join geographically remote minority populations into a single ward unless there are strong and genuine connections between these communities as reflected by common schools, churches, or cultural ties. For example, minority populations in two separate areas of town, located miles apart, may or may not have sufficient links to justify joining these two minority population centers into a single electoral group. Particularly when dealing with distinct minority groups, such as Black and Hispanic populations, a general assumption that separate minority populations will vote in a similar manner may be unsupportable in fact. Any plan should address fundamental and necessary governmental functions and to the extent possible, insure that these functions are enhanced rather than impaired. For example, the delivery of city services should be balanced to the extent possible between the resulting city wards. Physical boundaries such as rivers, which tend to divide populations in fundamental ways, should be recognized and communities of interest should be retained intact where possible. Election administration should not be unduly complex as a result of election boundaries. Any plan should insure that election voting precincts under that plan do not contain territory from more than one commissioners court precinct, justice precinct, congressional district, state representative district, state senatorial district, or city ward if the city has a population of 10,000 or more (this is a strict legal requirement, but city election wards should be honored in virtually all circumstances, with city and rural county voters being kept in separate voting precincts to the extent possible), State Board of Education districts, and where they exist, other special election districts, such as water, hospital, or navigation districts being identified to insure harmonious