Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 22
22, consider and take appropriate action on Travis County redistricting matters, including a, principles to guide the redistricting process.
and b, updated timetable for the redistricting process.
>>
>> good afternoon, judge, members of the court.
deece eckstein from intergovernmental relations.
this is an item that was on the court's agenda last week and the court asked for time to reconsider it.
there are two pieces of the puzzle we're talking about here.
the first is the adomtion of a set of principles that would guide our consultants and guide the process as we redraw the maps for the Commissioners' precincts, justice of the peace and constables precincts and for the election districts.
the second is to seaholm power plant if there are any modifications to the timetable the court adopted in October.
you have the backup in front of you.
I'm here just to answer any questions the court has and see what action the court would like to take.
>> I had a chance to go back and look at the guidelines.
I didn't really see any problem with the guidelines.
they looked like they were pretty straightforward.
I just wanted to make sure that if I looked at the guidelines I want to make sure the guidelines of the 2001, per se, I want to look and compare and see if the variance from the 2001 guidelines and look at the guidelines that we're looking at today.
and of course, there were some alterations to these particular guidelines, but I think all in interest of what we're dealing with here under today's law and other things like that.
so I didn't have any problem with that.
I wanted to make sure, though, as far as the schedule is concerned I know we looked at that and I saw modification to the schedule.
I think probably it would have to be laid out a little bit.
of course I looked at the -- back then the offer type situation.
and with tweafl I wanted to make sure we had enough time to deal with things and also get things back to d.o.j.
to make sure that the d.o.j.
-- department of justice had a chance to make sure that what we have submitted had a chance to be reviewed thoroughly in the timeline that we actually are looking at.
so I really didn't have too much to say about that; however, during the last discussion that we looked at on the guidelines and especially some of the outreach things that I think were discussed, I want to make sure that, you know, some of the things were actually laid out thoroughly enough to make sure that outreach, whatever format we end up using as far as outreach, and I heard that social media was something that we probably had looked at to some degree.
and of course, wanted to make sure that the outreach was in concert with what we normally have done in the past to make sure that we contact those individual persons.
my question, though, today is were there any -- because of the requests that were made to see the input from each Commissioner as far as outreach contacts within our individual precincts.
we were kind of charged with, okay, we want to look at that and we want you to assist us in that outreach effort by supplying a list to make sure that the persons involved in this process actually are notified through this process, through this portion of the process.
of course, there are other 10 ta kels as far as outreach effort.
my question is this: is there any type of format as far as names, addresses, e-mails, lists and all these other kind of things that each Commissioner needs to provide?
is there anything that we need to provide in a formatted structure or how would that be worked out in this regard?
>> that's a great question, Commissioner.
I have spoken several times with the person who is going to be our outreach consultant.
the firm that is going to be our outreach consultant.
and we have not asked them about the level of specificity of that information.
I think what they would prefer to have is names and mailing addresses of people that we can contact by letter and names and email addresses of people we can contact by email.
and I suppose in any format that you have, I assume most offices maintain some sort of excel spreadsheet of people who are interested in housing issues in their community or people that we send our christmas cards to or that sort of thing.
it's really those kinds of lists, Commissioner.
as you know, we can sort of shoot in the dark with social media outreach.
we can take out ads, we can plant some stories in the newspapers and we will do all those things.
but really the best predictor we have of people's being interested in how the county goes about its redistricting process is people who have already contacted you, people you slrd a relationship with as constituents because they've come to you about concerns they have or they've come to speak on an issue.
you know, you have that wonderful group of people from Commissioner Huber's precinct today here to talk about the floating structures on Lake Travis.
those are the kind of people who because of their interest, because of their activity we want to know about as much as possible.
I'd like to talk to the Commissioner about specific format we would like to have.
whatever you have in electronic format is really what we're going after.
>> okay.
because I was hoping whatever the consultant would agree on, the format would be consistent among all of us.
and of course, or they can take what we have and however they would like -- however -- the way they would like to deal with it, then let them deal with it accordingly.
and I don't know the answer to that question.
so that's why I posed the question.
>> I assume that our consultants would want to build a big excel database of some sort with names and phone numbers and email addresses.
but I will check all that and follow-up with all your offices with specific requests for that information.
we're at that point in the consultant's timetable where we want to ask all the Commissioners for that information from their offices.
>> okay.
thank you,.
>> yes, sir.
>> Commissioner Eckhardt?
>> with regard to 22-a, the principles to guide the redistricting process, I did have a question on the first page of the guidelines 4-b and 5 are substantially redundant and with the exception of the clause, the interest of incumbents.
I'm wondering if we could just strike five since it seems to be -- best part of five seems to be covered by adhering to traditional redistricting principles, included, but not limited to preserving historic boundaries, recognizing clearly identifiable communities of interest and social political economic geographic or service interests.
>> yes, commission.
>> that does not address electoral history and voting patterns which I think is what the intent of 5 is.
and that may be -- obviously the interest of incumbents is part of a concern that the -- that the consultants will take into account one way or the other, but the political voting patterns probably would also be relevant data for the process.
>> you don't think that's covered in interest, in social and political interests?
>> I think it's obviously -- I think it's a little more explicit in 5 than it is in 4.
certainly the -- as part of the buy logic process with each of the members of the court, I think the consultant will find out those things, but I think probably you would like to have the data of, okay, in this precinct or in this section which may be moved from here to here in terms of who the Commissioner is, what have been those historic patterns.
and it may be valuable information for the court, but obviously it's entirely up to the court what information and factors it wants to consider.
>> it was part of the principles last time.
>> yes.
>> I think it has been part of it.
>> it's clearly part of the principles, but I'm wondering its appropriateness.
if we're already considering -- I would suggest that we simply remove the clause, the interests of incumbents and.
>> I would just ask a question related to that.
certainly we need to live in the precinct.
so is our place of location covered by that or is residence covering somewhere else?
>> I just don't want it to preclude anything as far as what I'm looking for.
and I see the guidelines and of course we look at the guidelines, but if I don't think it's -- I just want to make sure that I have some say in whatever I end up doing with the consultant.
so that's the bottom line for me.
>> Commissioner Eckhardt, I'm probably getting out on a limb here both in terms of trying to understand what -- where you're coming from and what your concern is and in terms of my knowledge of redistricting law, which is why I'm glad mr. Bradford is here.
but I think courts have in the past acknowledged that it is a legitimate concern of the redistricting process to know for instance where do the incumbents live and to know what are the incumbents preferences, what are the voting preferences of that area.
although it sounds to us that -- as an old mentor of mine used to say, crass electoral politics, I think the courts have acknowledged that crass electoral politics is part of the redistricting process.
so I don't know if that is responsive to your concern or not.
obviously it's up to the court to see if we can leave that in.
>> the reason I bring that up is because these are guidelines that I would presume would be -- I'm not saying that we wouldn't take note of that and it certainly wouldn't be an interest of ours in the process, but I don't know of its appropriateness with regard to guidelines.
that's all I'm saying.
certainly there's no doubt in anybody's mind and I think that's the reason why it's perfectly permissible to have it in there.
there's no doubt in anybody's mind that we're the ones who get to decide the redistricting.
and we're also -- we also have an interest politically in what the outcome is.
but at the end of the day we are to be putting the communities of interest and their voting power above our individual benefit.
>> and the interest was personal -- I don't recall now because I don't have those minutes, but I know that it wasn't because of the individual desire of the incumbent.
but it has to do with something else.
>> and I think each of you represents a community that you have taken pains to get to know, that you reach out to, that you regularly communicate with, that you solicit input from, that you receive input from, whether you're soliciting it or not.
and that's obviously part of what you bring to the table as public servants.
and is part of what you're going to be considering when you're drawing those new maps.
>> do we need to postpone this another week and give the consultant a chance to come and explain it?
>> I would prefer not to postpone it because I think we're on a tight time frame.
>> it doesn't hurt anything by having it in.
it just provides another reason for a long discussion.
it's late in the day, so I think we wait to get to the consultant or approve it as it is unless there are fundamental reasons for doing it.
>> I move approval of the principles as presented.
>> Moore discussion?
-- more discussion?
I guess if we may take into consideration the flip side of that is we may not.
which is the same as taking it out.
all in favor?
don't give in, Commissioner Eckhardt.
that passes by unanimous vote.
A late afternoon humor.
>> [ laughter ]
>> let me clarify, it says take into consideration.
it's not -- it's just a consideration.
>> and may.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> update timetable.
whatever was supposed to take place before today is too late.
after today is fine.
any other changes to the timetable?
it looked fine to me last week.
>> it liked fine.
>> move approval.
>> discussion on the motion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
by a unanimous, enthusiastic court.
thank you, mr. Eckstein.
>> thank you.
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