Redistricting.
If you read the Raleigh papers, it’s a word you’re likely to see a lot of this Summer. The results of the 2010 US Census are in, and the US Constitution makes it the responsibility of each state to make sure its Congressional districts are roughly equal in size.
Politicians, whether Republican or Democrat, have, of course, found this an irresistible opportunity to craft Congressional districts with an eye to making sure their party dominates the state’s delegation to Washington.
Closer to home, there’s no requirement that Moore County’s Commissioner Districts be revised based on the new Census, but the League of Women Voters of Moore County [LWVMC] is urging the Board of Commissioners to take action, because the districts are seriously unbalanced.
In an April 5 letter to the Board, LWVMC President Jo Nicholas told the Board that the 2010 Census reveals a “substantial inequity of population among the districts,” and asked to present a League report on the issue later in the Summer, once the county budget debate is off the Commissioner table.
The League had signaled its interest in the redistricting question in 2008, with a report to the Board of Commissioner outlining the key issues to be considered. The Board took no action at the time, preferring to wait until the 2010 census results were in hand.
Those new numbers show a big imbalance among the five Commissioner districts. Ideally, each of the five districts would be exactly the same size, but that ideal is nearly impossible to achieve. According to an updated report prepared by the League’s Redistricting Committee, chaired by Carolyn Mealing, The NC Supreme Court has held that representative voting districts should not vary from that ideal population size by more than five percent.
Two of Moore County’s districts, which were last revised in 1995, vary from the ideal by more than thirty percent. District II, which includes both Pinehurst and Seven Lakes, is nearly thirty-eight percent larger than it should be. District III, which covers Robbins, Deep River, and High Falls, is thirty-two percent smaller than it should be. And District V, which includes Aberdeen and Pinebluff, is about six percent too small.
The League wants the Commissioners to bring these all within the five percent margin.
If you take a look at the current district layout [which you can do at www.sevenlakestimes.net], and the population by voting precinct, the most obvious way to bring the map into balance is to take Seven Lakes — and perhaps portions of West End — out of District II and place them in District III.
But that solution could be a little dicey, since that solution would place current Commissioners Craig Kennedy and Nick Picerno in the same district.
While she agreed that moving Seven Lakes from one district to the other is the most obvious step, LMVMC Redistricting Chair Mealing told The Times that the decision is completely up to the Commissioners, as is the process they might use to consider the matter.
“They can hold public hearings, look at different scenarios — however they want to handle it,” Mealing told The Times.
Or they could avoid the matter altogether.
Moore County’s Commissioner districts are not like the districts of US Representatives or members of the State Senate and House. Those officials must reside in their district and are elected by, and only by, the citizens who reside in the district. They are true “representative” districts.
Moore County’s Commissioners, on the other hand, are drawn from “residency” districts. The Commissioner must live in the district that he or she represents, but the whole county gets to vote for the Commissioner from each district. [The Commissioner Districts are also used for School Board elections.]
Because of this unusual system — shared by only 18 of North Carolina’s 100 counties — there is no requirement that the districts be equalized in size, as there would be if they were truly “representative districts.” But the League suggests that the unequal size violates the principle of “one person one vote,” and asks the Board of Commissioners to correct the imbalance.
Specifically, the League is asking the Commissioners to:
• Find that the current districts are substantial unequal.
• Redraw the district lines to remedy the inequality.
• Work with the Board of elections and the county’s Geographic Information Systems department to draw the new lines.
• Establish a regular process for reviewing the district lines.
According to LWVMC research, the Commissioners have the authority to redraw the lines, without seeking approval from the General Assembly.
Mealing told The Times that the League has had no response as yet to its April 5 letter to the Board, but added that, given the pressing concern to craft a county budget, due in June, no quick response was expected.
The League’s hope is that the Board will take up the issue this Summer.
