Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 13, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 23
23.
consider and take appropriate action on the following: a.
redistricting plans for the following Travis County precincts: i.
county Commissioners; ii.
justices of the peace and constables; iii.
elections; and preclearance submission to the united states department of justice.
>> good morning judge Biscoe, members of the court.
governmental relations officer for the county.
what we reviewed briefly for the court, where we stand, on August 16th, the court approved a preliminary map for justice of the peace in constable precincts on August 23rd, the court approved preliminary math for Commissioner precincts, what we have been doing since then is working to reconcile those maps with other boundaries such as boundaries for the state board of education, the u.s.
congress and state house and u.s.
senate which the election precinct lines must conform.
in the last couple of weeks we have been circulating a draft plan for reconciling the Commissioner precincts and the justice of the peace and constable precincts by making small changes to those.
you have in the packet that you were given today, you actually received two packets.
one is a larger packet that has the summary of public testimony received.
the electronic communication that was receive and the preclearance permission from the department of justice but also a brief summary of the changes we want to make that looks like this.
you were given updated version of that yesterday, along with copies of the proposed new map for the Commissioner and the justice of the peace precincts.
Commissioner's map is noun as plan ge171 and the new justice of the peace and constable precinct map is known as plan ge118.
we have large copies of both of those plans up here for the court's perusal.
you also received yesterday a zoomble pdf file so you could look at it, but as I mentioned earlier, this page summarizes those changes and really all we are doing is moving 800 people out of a population of over a million of -- among some of the different precincts.
so what we are -- what the courts -- what we are going to ask the court to do today is to approve the new jp constable map plan ge118, approve new Commissioners map plan 171 and also approve the draft submission to the department of justice that has been prepared by the consultants.
what we would like to do is get the plan up to washington, to the department of justice as soon as possible, while we do final cleanup on the election precinct map and bring that back to the court in a couple of weeks.
>> okay.
is this the item you are here on?
>> yes, it is.
>> do you want to hear comments now or --
>> I appreciate it if I could wait to make sure the boundaries are -- that we talked to before are are the same or changed those.
>> which precinct interested in?
>> 216.
>> for the Commissioners?
>> Commissioners court.
>> okay.
on ge118, that affects the constables in jp, it was really the only constable of jp precinct 2.
>> the original plan that was adopted by the court swapt 4 precincts between precinct 2 and 5.
swapped four from 2 to 5 and four other precincts from 5-2, that was in plan ge117.
what we do in this plan, all we do is plan 118, is take that line, if you remember, judge, the Commissioners in their map, on the boundary line between precinct 1 and precinct 4, had moved precinct 123, part of precinct 126 and part of precinct 129 all from Commissioner precinct 61 into Commissioner precinct 4, all we are doing in ge118 is conforming the gp and constable lines to the Commissioners precinct lines so that those same portions of land which are in justice of the peace and constable precinct one would move into justice of the peace con stability precinct 4.
that's what I am doing in ge118.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion.
>> I have a question on the usefulness of just getting these emails and communications written regarding this.
>> well, we are providing -- we have provided the summaries of the meetings to the court as the -- earlier.
what we did do was put all of the backup and emails and all of that and we wanted to provide it to the court.
it may be the department of justice asked for that as part of our submission and we are going to offer to send that to them upon their request.
>> would these -- it seems to me like these emails especially, as many as they are, would have been useful to the court as part of the process before the votes would have taken place.
>> okay.
>> I thinks this another example of a very flawed process on our redistricting.
>> any more comments?
all those in favor?
so Commissioners Davis, Eckhardt, Gomez, voting in favor.
Commissioner Huber against.
on the Commissioners precincts.
>> Commissioners precincts, there were -- again the purpose of the changes making are simply to make minor changes to the precincts in order to conform, usually to congressional lines that somehow or another varied from previous precinct lines or previous Commissioner precinct lines.
there are 7 changes.
they affect 818 people and together do not affect the overall deviation of the counties plan as a whole, and we would ask if the court has any questions, we would ask for adoption of plan ge171.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> we are interested in what happens 216.
can we tell him that.
>> under this plan, portion of precinct 110, right along interstate 10 that we are going to merge into precinct 216.
>> thirty-five.
>> sorry, i-35, excuse me, right and interstate i-35 that we are going to merge into precinct 216.
I think the population number for that is 57 people and 32 voters.
there was some discussion on the day of last week about the possibility of moving plan 2 -- excuse me, moving precinct 216 into its entirety into precinct 1, but that is not in this plan.
>> good news mr. Tershan.
have a seat and give us your name.
>> my name is tom tershan and with wells branch utility district.
I have with me janet maxi with the utility district and a president of the neighborhood association wells branch.
unfortunately, I spoke on this issue with them at a public hearing in reference to moving the boundaries from wells branch south to howard lane, to compensate an short area a bunch of apartment complexes.
my understanding was that had been changed to where 216 would be left in wells branch and we would be dealing with one Commissioner.
is that correct?
>> that's the case.
>> that's the case.
>> then I am for that.
thank you very much.
>> we really appreciate y'all coming out today and taking an interest.
>> if I may, your honor, one thing is, deputy constable kevin agner did a lot of of work for wells branch and our security and we will definitely miss him.
he spent many years in law enforcement and I appreciate y'all knowing that wells branch was severely affected by the loss of this man.
>> thank you very much.
we appreciate knowing that.
any other questions, comments regarding the Commissioners precincts?
>> thanks so much for coming.
>> I move approval.
>> I already moved.
>> shade: is there a second.
>> second.
>> second by Commissioner Gomez.
discussion on the motion?
all those in favor?
show Commissioner Gomez, Davis, Eckhardt, yours truly voting in favor.
Commissioner Huber voting against.
>> final item, judge, is the commission of the department of justice.
the draft document you have in front of you was prepare ford the consultants, there was review by the county attorneys office and we are here today to ask the court to approval sending that document to the department of justice along with the plans that you just approved for preclearance submission under the voting rights act.
>> I move that we preclear the submission.
>> second.
>> motion and second to approve.
this is b?
>> yes.
>> what did we do about 3i?
>> judge, on the -- delay.
>> we would like to come back in probably two weeks.
>> we welcome your return.
>> any more discussion on the motion?
>> yes, judge, let me find out exactly the time line that we could expect the okay from the preclearance doj, how long are we talking about after we submit it today.
>> once you move approval, customer, today, we will get to the department of justice by Friday.
>> all right.
>> and 60 days and then get it approved.
>> within 60 daytime line?
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> thank you, and Commissioner Davis as you and I spoke before, we are glad that the court is acting today.
the filing period for the next elections will begin on November 12th so we really are are going to be pretty close on that 60-day period.
>> time line, okay, thank you.
>> there is a lawsuit in san antonio, Texas underway.
our county judge was there on Saturday testifying on behalf of Travis County, not to brag, but we have been working hard.
the question is.
>> thank you, judge.
>> the outcome of that litigation may well cause us to revisit some of the decisions that are contained in the documents we have approved today, right?
>> absolutely, judge, and if I might characterize the status of that case.
given the fact that the state basically split up into 8 different parts the hispanic and african-american community in dallas, we created a district for hispanic and african-americans that exceeded 50% sbap, it is likely to raise a red flag.
it is very likely the court will will get into the redistricting process itself and start doing line drawing and Travis County -- by the way, I might say -- judge Biscoe did an excellent job testifying.
>> oh, thanks.
>> we have strong evidence of coalition district between hispanics, african-americans and whites and it's the one county, major county in Texas that under this plan doesn't have an anchor congressional district.
you have five congressional districts coming in here and basically splitting up the county.
every other county -- even nueces county has an anchor congressional district.
so it's very -- it's very -- very likely the court is going to get into the redistricting and then somewhat likely, given the excellent testimony, that the court will get into the issue of the coalition districts in Travis County and how your county was basically eviscerated.
and if that happens, some of the precincts -- it should change.
it shouldn't affect the precinct lines but the precincts may change and also, if the court feels they need to do it because they haven't made the decision in time, all of the filing deadlines can be moved back.
they have that power.
>> I thought I mentioned that because it is a real possibility when we think about it.
>> yes.
>> okay.
any more discussion?
all those in favor?
show Commissioners Davis, Eckhardt, Gomez, and yours truly voting in favor.
Commissioner Huber vote against.
anything else today?
>> that's it, thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
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