[taxthedeer]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/articles/2012/1...19228957960.txt

Council members discuss redistricting at workshop

By Kelley Smith
Staff Writer

Published: Thursday, October 11, 2012 5:08 PM CDT

MICHIGAN CITY — The Michigan City Common Council met at City Hall Wednesday to discuss how the boundaries of the city's six wards will be determined in the redistricting that must be decided by the end of the year.

Council President and Second Ward Councilman Marc Espar explained that every ten years, after a U.S. Census is completed, each state, county and municipality must undergo a redistricting, under the premise that populations shift geographically and voters should be represented equally.

To achieve that equality, each ward must be contiguous and contain an equal voting population, plus or minus 10 percent (unless an exception can be justified).

The current population of Michigan City is 31,479. Divided equally among six wards, each ward would have a population of 5,246. The 10 percent threshold allows each ward to contain between 4,721 and 5,771 voters.



Until now, the 2,200 inmates at the Indiana State Prison have been counted in the population of the city's Third Ward, even though they cannot vote according to federal law.

Espar suggested Michigan City follow in the footsteps of Terre Haute, Ind., and exclude the prisoners from that ward's population, as the council is only required to count the population of active voters.

He said the Third Ward council representative would have 2,200 fewer voters to convince at election time than the council representatives from the other five wards, diluting the voting power of constituents outside that ward and unfairly strengthening the representation of the voters inside it.

Third Ward Councilman Ron Hamilton Jr. argued that excluding the prisoners would violate federal law, but was corrected by Council Attorney James Meyer, who said the "one man, one vote" clause in the U.S. Constitution is ambiguous.

Meyer said the council may legally decide whether or not to include the prisoners in the population, as the Supreme Court made such an allowance for municipalities in Maryland.

One solution, Meyer said, would be to count each prisoner in their last known place of residence prior to incarceration.

Another issue affecting the redistricting of city wards stems from previous boundary redraws by both Michigan City and La Porte County.

Espar said there was a breakdown in communication the last time the County Commissioners redistricted the voting precincts and the city redistricted the wards. The result was that some precinct lines now cross over into wards to which those precincts do not belong.

He said this year's redistricting must address that problem and eliminate the crossover, or overlaps.

If the prison population is counted in the Third Ward, two precincts must be shifted. If prisoners are excluded, all six wards will have to be redrawn.

Fifth Ward Councilman Duane Parry called it "a ripple effect."

At-Large Councilman Tim Bietry said that to him, "what makes sense is the least amount of disruption of voters."

The majority of the council agreed that they would like to travel "the path of least resistance."

Espar clarified that regardless of whether the prisoners are included or excluded, the redistricting will not change where city residents vote, only whose names will be on the ballots.

He told the council to review the current maps and to begin to decide what changes they want to suggest at a workshop that will be scheduled for sometime next week.

Espar said he would like to hold a public hearing after that in order to get constituents' input on how the population should be counted and how the lines should be drawn.

After the public hearing, he would like for the final reading of the redistricting ordinance to be ready by the Nov. 20 council meeting.

In a telephone interview last week, La Porte County Republican Party Chairman Keith Harris said his largest concern over this year's redistricting is that it should correct the crossover of precincts and wards created by the last redraw.

La Porte County Democratic Party Chairman John Jones, also previously interviewed, said his most major concern is that the city's "minority demographics" do not lose representation on the council when the ward boundaries are shifted.

[Southsider2k12]

Wouldn't excluding prisoners cause the loss of a ton of state and federal dollars which are based on population? We might be shooting ourselves in the foot here, all for the love of a little bigger third ward.