Georgians urge unified, apolitical new maps

Thursday 30 June 2011

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Show us the maps, keep our communities together and don’t inject politics in the process. Those are the messages lawmakers have heard in a series of public hearings around the state as they prepare to draw new legislative and congressional district lines.

The special redistricting committee’s tour of Georgia concludes tonight with a public hearing at Georgia Tech’s LeCraw Auditorium. The public can give lawmakers advice, guidance or criticism over the process that will result in new maps for 180 state House districts, 56 state Senate seats and 14 congressional seats.
And if the Atlanta experience is anything like the past 11 hearings, lawmakers will hear some familiar themes. Whether they listen is a different question. But today’s hearing is the final public step before legislators return to Atlanta in August for a special session to approve the new maps. Gov. Nathan Deal, who must still officially call the General Assembly back to work, has said the special session will begin Aug. 15.
Redistricting is the hugely important, complex and wonkish exercise states undergo every 10 years following the U.S. Census. Every electoral district in the state must be redrawn to reflect changes in where people live to ensure that each district includes roughly the same population count. Based on the 2010 Census, every state House district must have about 54,000 residents and each Senate district about 173,000. Georgia will also add a 14th congressional seat due to population growth over the decade. The seat will likely be in north Georgia which has grown faster than other areas of the state.
The political stakes are huge. In 2001, when Democrats controlled the House, Senate and governor’s office — as Republicans do today — the redistricting process was divisive and led to a nearly two-year court battle. Many blamed Democrats’ strong-arming of the redistricting process for Republicans’ state government take over in 2004.
Rep. Roger Lane, a Darien Republican and chairman of the House redistricting committee, said the message from voters has been what was expected.
“The underlying theme of most of what we’ve learned is the public doesn’t want us to do the redistricting as it’s been done in the past,” Lane said. “And, you’re right, they want to keep communities together. It’s a fairly common theme.”
In Cartersville on June 7, Bartow County native William Neel said exactly that.
“That’s not right, to break up all these communities,” Neel said.
The call to keep neighbors together in the same districts is one of the few aspects of redistricting that transcends party politics.
“Please ensure that the districts are drawn to the same size as much as possible,” Richmond County GOP chairman Bob Finnegan told lawmakers at the May 17 hearing in Augusta. “Communities that have similar issues, needs and legislative concerns deserve representation from someone who lives locally and understands the needs of that community.”
Lane, however, warns that it’s not going to be possible to grant everyone’s wishes. One complicating factor is the Voting Rights Act, which requires that the state maintain at least the same number of districts where minority voters are a majority of the population, Lane said.
Lawmakers themselves are worked up about their futures, too, Lane said.
“Most folks won’t get what they want,” he said of his colleagues in the General Assembly. “It’s just not possible.”
Lawmakers, however, can and do make regular visits to the redistricting office to see draft maps and speak with the aides who are actually crunching the data and spitting out proposed districts. That’s a level of access the public does not enjoy, and some are not happy about it.
“I want to see exactly what they have in mind,” Lawrence Headrick of Tunnel Hill said following the June 20 hearing in Dalton. “I hope they are serious about what will benefit the state and not just the politicians. I’ve seen enough political gravy.”
R.J. Hadley, the vice chairman of congressional districts for the Democratic Party of Georgia, railed at the Republican-controlled redistricting committee during the June 14 hearing in Stockbridge.
“My comments are fairly simple,” Hadley said. “Show us the maps. Show us the maps. Show us the process. This is supposed to be fair, equitable and transparent.”
Hadley also was critical of the committee’s refusal to answer questions or give much in the way of feedback on the process, a point made clear by Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg, at the beginning of the Dalton hearing.
“We are going around the state gathering information, input from citizens,” he said. “We are not here to answer questions. We are not here to engage in debate.”
But, later during a break, Sen. Charlie Bethel, R-Dalton, said he thinks the process will be transparent.
“When we go into special session in August, it will be just like a normal legislative process,” he said. “We will have hearings in the committee. People will deliver testimony. It will be open to the public. When we have maps, there will be a bill ... and people will be able to read the bill and see the maps.”
Lane is hopeful, but not guaranteeing, that draft maps will be ready by the time lawmakers return in August.
“That’s a good goal to have,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s just getting them drawn is going to be a real chore.”
But, he said, there will be a chance for input.
“It’s a political process and you have to get representatives and senators to vote for the maps when we’re through with them,” he said. “They’re hotly debated and the public will have the opportunity to have input in that debate.”


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