Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 17
Mr. Eckstein, number 17.
17.
consider and take appropriate action on the following: a.
redistricting plans for the following Travis County precincts: 1.
county Commissioners; 2.
justices of the peace and constables; and 3.
elections (voter tabulation districts, or vtds); and b.
preclearance submission and/or supplement to the united states department of justice.
mr. Eckstein?
>> good morning, judge Biscoe, deece eckstein with intergovernmental relations.
we are very close to the end of the redistricting process.
this is really the last major decision that the court has to make.
that has to do with the shape of the election precincts or what we're commonly referring to as voter -- voting tabulation districts or vtd's.
the cover -- backup materials that you have in front of you, have several parts to them.
let me walk you through them very quickly.
first a cover memo from me.
secondly two maps of -- both maps of the vtd's, one with a color overlay showing you the Commissioner's precincts over those maps and the second with the same vtd boundary, but with an overlay map of the -- of the justice of the peace precincts.
so you should have two large size maps that show that.
you also have a listing, a spreadsheet that shows -- here's what happened, as we were finalizing these vtd's, we obviously had to move around some little census block areas, some things were like the -- the frontage road of a highway from -- from point a to point b sort of thing.
we were moving those around in order to make those consistent so that we could create -- we didn't have to create any precincts that we had to account for, but that didn't have anybody living in them.
in order to do that, we did have to move around some -- some vtd's, however, that did have population in them and in cases where they might be moving some people from say Commissioner precinct 3 to Commissioner precinct 4 or j.p.
precinct 2 to j.p.
precinct 5, we tried to identify those on this spreadsheet.
as you can see from the spreadsheet, the sum total of all of the little fine tunings we did, really amounts to only 377 people being moved.
so that's the backup material.
then you have the individual maps for all of those moves in the backup for the description of what we're trying to do.
in most cases what we are simply trying to do is to reconcile say a vtd line with a Commissioner precinct line or a Commissioner precinct line with a jp line with a vtd line.
so those are the -- those were the 10 suggestions that are included on that spreadsheet are all embedded in the map.
after we got the map, we identified two other things, that's at the back of your backup, two other changes that we also want to ask the court to make today.
one -- basically, those two changes are changes that the court has already made as to your precinct boundaries, but through my oversight I neglected to ask the court at the same time to also change jp and constable precinct boundaries to conform with that.
so these are changes that you actually have already made to your precinct boundaries and we're really trying to get in cases where the j.p.
and constable precinct lines were running co-terminus with your precinct boundaries, we are really trying to clean all of that up and make that work.
so there's three separate decisions that we're asking the court to makement one is to adopt a map of all of the vtd precincts, including 10 changes that affect the boundary line between Commissioner precincts or between jp and constable precincts.
then to adopt two more changes, that are really changes to the j.p.
and constable precinct lines that will help us not have to create these small precincts that we're just over-- that were just oversight from the previous go round.
>> these maps contain all of those changes.
>> these maps contain all of those changes, that's correct.
>> questions, comments?
Commissioner Huber?
>> how does the court case on the state and federal districts relate to our Commissioners and j.p.
changes?
>> very timely and excellent question, Commissioner.
the -- the litigation over the congressional districts is proceeding in san antonio.
the justice department in washington has refused to preclear the congressional maps.
which means that there's also litigation in washington and if the court in washington decides to overrule the justice department and say that the congressional maps are okay, then that will be at least for those purposes the end of the matter.
however, the court here in san antonio which has specific jurisdiction over the congressional case, has now issued an order yesterday -- I'm sorry, issued an order on Friday last week saying we should prepare alternate maps just in case the -- the district court in d.c.
agrees with the department of justice that the congressional maps do not meet the requirements of the voting rights act.
I believe Commissioner Huber that there's probably a 50% chance that -- that even if the court agrees that -- that the current congressional map does not meet the requirements of the voting rights right, there's a chance that the new plan will change the boundaries in Travis County.
if they do change congressional boundaries in Travis County, then we would have to come back to the court and see about reconciling our voter precinct maps with -- with those congressional maps and then the court at that time could decide whether it wanted to revisit the Commissioner precinct maps or the j.p.
and constable precinct maps.
that obviously would not be my recommendation to the court.
but we may at some point have to come back and reconcile vtd lines with changed congressional lines.
but it is my judgment that there's probably a 50% chance that even if they do strike down the map, that the changes they would require will affect Travis County.
>> we would alert the court and the parties that our vtd map, the idea is at that point that we -- we need something to move forward with since that's uncertain, correct?
>> correct.
>> correct.
>> and in moving forward with this, we could at least provide those -- and may assist in having to put something out that works that they could adopt what works for them and not what doesn't.
>> that's correct.
and my understanding is that the lawyers in the Travis County Commissioners court, representing Travis County in the litigation in san antonio.
has informed the court that our court has proceeded with creating Commissioner and new j.p.
constable boundaries and is proceeding in creating new vtd boundaries, which my understanding is our lawyers will submit to the court for their use if the court decides to redraw boundary lines within Travis County.
so with any luck, they may be able to redraw whatever lines they're going to do in Travis County.
using these new lines that the court has adopted.
knock on wood.
>> we will have done our part to mitigate any chaos from these --
>> that's correct, that's correct.
>> okay.
>> we received a -- an email from the secretary of state, Texas secretary of state yesterday, on Friday.
what effect will that -- will that communication have on what we're doing?
>> what -- what the email was was an advisory again coming to -- through the secretary of state from the court in san antonio saying that whatever statutory deadlines, local governments were working under in terms of having to create these maps, those governments were free to -- to suspend those statutory deadlines.
the court therefore has discretion today to say, well, let's not take any action, one option for the court would be to say let's not take any action on the vtd until the congressional litigation has reached a point where we know whether or not we're going to have any changes in Travis County.
that's really the essence of the secretary of state's advisory was to give the court of option of saying you don't have to take action.
>> we don't -- all it means, we don't have to turn in our homework on the assignment date.
>> that's correct.
>> but we have our homework done.
>> you have done the homework.
the question is whether or not we want to move forward with that homework.
realizing that we may be forced to make additional changes by the litigation.
>> yes, sir.
if I can make one other comment about the maps that you have in front of you.
you will see there's odd numbering on the maps.
there's a precinct 164, there's also a precinct 1641, again, once the court has made its decisions about what it wants the boundaries to be, there will be the ministerial being that will be done by the county clerk's office and the voter registrar's office are renumbering all of the precincts.
their policy is that to the extent that a precinct as an example Commissioner Davis, precinct 101 that is changing in minor ways, along the river front, precinct 101 will remain precinct 101 to eliminate confusion.
obviously some parts of town now have moved from precinct 2 to 1, or precinct 3 to 4 and in those cases, those precincts will have to be renumbered.
but with the goal of the county clerk and the voter registrar are to have as few of those changes as necessary.
I say that only to advise the court that the numbers that you see in front of you, in terms of the numbers for those precincts may change some hopefully once you have made your decision the -- the boundaries themselves won't change.
>> I move that we approve the -- the recommended changes to previously adopted voting precincts.
>> second.
>> discussion on the motion?
all in favor?
show Commissioners he could hard, Davis, yours truly voting in favor.
Commissioner Huber voting against.
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