Sedgwick County OKs last-minute redistricting committee amid questions of fairness
Sedgwick County will empanel a bipartisan committee to recommend new boundaries for commission districts, but whether the group will have time to do its work is an open question.
The committee will be made up of five members appointed by the commission and 10 selected by the League of Women Voters, a watchdog group that monitors local elections and advocates for voting rights.
But as presently envisioned, that committee won’t be appointed until the commission can pass a resolution on Dec. 1 to create it.
From then, the group will have nine days to organize, meet and prepare a report for the commission by Dec. 10 with its recommendations on redistricting. Commissioners retained the final say over redistricting.
Commission Chairman Pete Meitzner said he was “very concerned” that with the committee capped at 15 members and 20 cities in the county, some cities would not have a representative on the commission.
“I think this is a very dangerous path we’re going down,” Meitzner said. “But, in a way, since the recommendation is nonbinding as part of the resolution, I will vote ‘Aye.’”
The fast turnaround time came about because just before the commissioners voted to establish the committee, they voted to impose a deadline of Dec. 15 for final adoption of a redistricting plan.
The commission is carrying out a process they’re required to do once each decade after the release of the U.S. Census count. By law, all governmental bodies divided into districts have to balance populations between those districts, so each person’s vote ideally carries equal weight.
Where the lines are drawn can dramatically affect the voting power of racial and political minorities and other groups with common interests in government. Federal law prohibits redistricting plans that discriminate against people of color or members of language minority groups.
10 maps, 50 districts
Ten maps have already been proposed: eight drawn up by county staff and one each sponsored by commissioners Lacey Cruse, a Democrat, and Jim Howell, a Republican.
With each map having five commission districts, the redistricting committee will have to analyze at least 50 districts to determine whether they’re fair or not. The committee will have the authority to propose its own map.
Martha Pint, co-president of the League, said the deadlines will limit what the group can do, but “We’ll do what we can.”
Ideally, there would be enough time built into the process to talk to the people in precincts that would be moved to another district to determine whether they feel they’re being separated from an area of shared interest.
Fair maps are “so much more than just doing the math,” she said. “These are not just lines on a map. These are people we’re talking about.”
Sedgwick County has come under fire from residents and the ACLU for ignoring race demographics to avoid accusations of gerrymandering, the drawing of lines to favor parties or other interests. A county attorney said if the commission doesn’t consider racial data, it’s more difficult to be accused of gerrymandering.
Howell, who brought the issue to light Monday, again requested access to that data at Wednesday’s meeting.
“Right now, I don’t know which maps are splitting groups and which ones aren’t,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you. I have no idea.”
And while commissioners specified that they wanted the redistricting committee to be “bipartisan,” Pint said the League is nonpartisan and its appointments will reflect that.
“It’s not going to be do we have enough Rs or Ds in the room,” she said.
Russell Fox, a professor of political science at Friends University, said he supports the idea of having a bipartisan group weigh in on the maps, a process used in some other states to encourage fairer districts.
“I’m not going to criticize that,” he said.
However, he said: “If you want to pull together a group like that, you ought to give them some time” to do the necessary work.
Just getting a group that size together in a meeting is difficult, he said. County Manager Tom Stolz recommended that any meetings take place at the downtown courthouse so staff supporting the effort would have computer access.
Fox said the reality is that commissioners, their political advisers and their parties are already well aware of how the different proposals might affect the balance of power in the county.
“I can’t see something like this, especially done this quickly, adding anything new or insightful,” he said.
Cruse: Maps unfair
Creation of the committee passed 4-1 with Howell dissenting.
His “no” vote was invited by Cruse, who made the motion to establish the committee and let the League pick two-thirds of the members.
Howell criticized Cruse for not defining the partisan makeup of the committee. He also said he had unanswered questions about whether it would have a diversity requirement and whether anyone would be prohibited from serving.
“Those are great questions,” Cruse said. “I would say that given the time frame and the speed in which this has been developed, if you don’t like the terms, vote against it. That’s my answer to your questions.”
Cruse said she wanted an outside look at the maps because she didn’t think the ones that were proposed by the county staff were fair to her or her district.
“I think it’s important for us to understand that a lot of these maps affect only a small percentage of a district, which is mine,” Cruse said. “District 4 . . . has a large minority population, and most of these maps will split those groups.
“For example, Plan 1 would reduce the power of African Americans to exercise their right to vote, to elect commissioners. Instead of being 13% of voters in one district, District 4, they would be spread between districts and their voting strength in District 4 would be reduced to almost half, to 7%. I can go on and talk about all the rest of these. . . . I think it’s important for us to really understand how this affects the entire community as a whole.”
Both creation of the committee and the deadline were brought up as off-agenda items and put together at Wednesday’s meeting.
Meitzner originally proposed Jan. 5 as the deadline to complete redistricting.
But Howell said he wanted it done sooner to give candidates in next year’s election more time to gather signatures to get on the ballot, if they choose to do instead of paying a filing fee of $950.
Commissioner David Dennis sided with Howell, as did Meitzner, eventually. They passed the Dec. 15 deadline over the objections of Cruse and Lopez.
This story was originally published November 17, 2021 at 5:10 PM.
