Travis County Commissioners Court
December 6, 2011 (Agenda)
Item A1
>> a 1, mr. Eckstein, since we have you there, consider and take appropriate action on redistricting plans for the following precincts, county Commissioners, justices of the peace and constables and elections.
>> we just wanted to be availability to give an update to the court if one was needed.
as you know, the three judge panel in san antonio has issued new redistricting plans for the congressional, state house and state senate districts.
those plans have been challenged by the state and they have asked for a stay.
we are still waiting to hear from the supreme court, and as of 10:00 this morning had not heard from them.
from our perspective and the perspective of this agenda item, our challenge now is to redesign our voting tabulation districts in order to conform them to the new lines.
and we are working on the -- I just wanted to update the court that we are in the process of doing that.
we have the voter register gis staff at the tax assessor-collector office and the county clerk's elections administration people working on redesigning the maps.
what we're hoping to be able to do is to do it where we minimize any changes to the Commissioner precincts and the j.p.
precincts.
those are really the only ones we have any control over so it may be that in order to conform -- to conform an election precinct line to a change that was made to the congressional line, we need to move a few people among Commissioner or j.p.
precincts.
I think we've got the possibility of doing that with very minimal changes to that.
but our goal is to have that -- those maps and those plans available to the members of the court by the end of this week so that the court can take action next week.
the court order issued by the three judge panel in san antonio includes a provision that says Commissioners court should adopt new ctd lines by December 13th -- vtd lines by December 13th.
>> there was concern about voting tabulation district, to have precinct 278 may be impacted.
>> yes, sir.
>> and, of course, -- and to make it whole, they have several suggestions -- well, one suggestion was to ensure that 12th street to garrison street would be made available, and, of course, they mentioned a couple other boundaries there, mopac to lamar/shoal creek in order to make district -- precinct 278 whole again instead of it being separated.
so how do we address that particular situation to make sure -- from the constituent that referred to me that -- did you receive an email in that regard?
>> yes, sir.
that constituent copied me on the email and I immediately forwarded it to the gis people at the voter registrar's office and we are working on that.
precinct 278 had been cut in half by a congressional -- by one of the congressional lines in the map passed by the legislature.
in the map ordered by the three judge panel, 278 is not cut in half any more and so I believe they are working to reconfigure 278 back to what it looked like before.
>> > currently?
>> they are working on this now.
there are a number of situations where precincts were cut in half by the congressional map or changed somehow by the congressional maps passed by the legislature and the new maps ordered by the court tend to follow what we would think of as the existing precinct boundary lines, voting precinct boundary lines much more closely.
so we actually plan to come back to the court with several instances like you are describing, Commissioner Davis, where we had changed a precinct in the map that you all approved on October 4th and now we're going to go back to the way that precinct was before.
we think this will minimize voter confusion and adjustment to this -- to the new district lines as much as possible and that's our goal in this process.
>> so any lines that we change today or until we hear otherwise will be based on the san antonio court's decision.
>> that's correct.
>> but the supreme court could change that.
>> and the -- in its appeal to the supreme court, the court has recognized were new maps to be drawn or order the lower courts to draw new maps, that would as a practical matter make the current election calendar that we're working on unworkable.
and so the state has proposed that if the supreme court does decide to grant the stay, that it abate in a sense all the voter registration processes that are ongoing now, the redrawing of precinct boundaries, the filing period that is going on now and issue a new schedule for that with the idea probably that the primary election, which is currently scheduled for March 6th, would actually be held in may sometime.
>> do we have a deadline as far as the -- to make -- just an example again on 278, to make those particular precincts whole instead of splitting them all over the place, was there a certain deadline that -- a date that must be done for all of those --
>> under the san antonio court's order, Commissioner Davis, this Commissioners court should take action by next Tuesday.
>> by next Tuesday.
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> so we'll have a 1 back on in its entirety next week.
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
thank you.
that brings us to executive session, miss parter, we only have two items.
>> miss thomas had sent you a email suggesting the first item be held after lunch because she is currently in an action on that and on the second, that was likely not going to be needing to reached as well.
until after lunch and may not be needed at all unless the supreme court acts.
>> so everybody except the Commissioners court is in an after lunch state of mind this morning.
in that case, I move that we recess for lunch until 1:00.
>> second.
>> is that enough time?
>> 1:30.
>> I was going to do it 1:00, hour and a half.
1:30 is better.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
