Trouble With The Justification Story

I don't know how many people have been bamboozled by the story justifying the need for new precinct maps, but I was certainly one of them !

If you read through yesterday's blog entry, "New Precincts And Proposed New Council Districts", you will see that the justification for reprecincting was that the State Legislature had created their new House and Senate districts by totally ignoring the precinct boundaries.  Thus, new precincts had to be cobbled together to try to make the Legislative districts whole.

Well.....  That storyline turns out to be fabrication. 

The truth turns out to be that the House and Senate districts were defined by listing the precincts they include.  You can read it for yourself, but I'll summarize it here:

IC 2-1-12 - lists 2011 House districts by precinct.  Scroll down and you will find Marion County precincts included in districts 86-100.  I can find no precinct that has been included in more than one House district.

IC 2-1-13 - lists 2011 Senate districts by precinct.  Districts 28-36 contain Marion County precincts.  Once again, I can find no precinct that has been included in more than one Senate district.

So - there was no need to create new precincts at this time.  The impact I noted yesterday on creating split precincts from the redistricting of Township Board lines using the old precincts, still holds however.  Bottom line, these new precincts will increase the confusion and expense of the Primary and General Elections in 2012. 

If it were up to me, I'd revoke these precinct boundaries and honor the electorate with both the chance to weigh in on new Council districts and by telling them the truth.

[hat tip to fellow bloggers Paul Ogden and Gary Welsh for illuminating this corner for me]

What Would You Waste $290,000 On ? -- Part 6 of Series

There is only one way that the $290,000 budgeted to the Council for redistricting could be anything but a waste of taxpayer money, and that is if the Council leadership puts it in an interest bearing account and doesn't actually spend it.

Redistricting is called for whenever data from a new Census is available and the timing of that redistricting does not interfere with an ongoing election. The 2010 Census data will not be available until April, 2011, according to the Indianapolis Star. Filing to run for a Council seat ends in February, 2011; to file, one must prove residency within one's chosen district. The Primary and General election for Council will follow that same year. Clearly, the new Census data cannot be used to form new Council districts in time for the next Council election. We don't even have to consider the possibility of any court action to decide it cannot happen. Its as secure a conclusion as the fact that gravity will still take hold on the Earth come 2011.

The only other way the Council leadership can spend that money is to use Census estimates of population block by block. If they were to do so, the folks they hire might be happy about it, but few others would be. The districts likely would be challenged in Court - the same Courts that drew the current districts in 2003. And, the districts would have to be redrawn after the 2010 Census data was available anyway. Another conclusion as dependable as gravity : Redistricting before 2012 is just thowing money away.

It was stated during the budget hearings that the Council leadership wanted to budget the $290,000 for 2010 and an equal amount for 2011. Even pretending that redistricting is a good idea before 2011, one must ask why Todd Rokita, Secretary of State, can redistrict 9 Congressional districts, 50 State Senate districts, and 100 State House districts for the low low price of $50,000 - while the Council leadership can't redraw 22 districts for anything less than $580,000.

I will say it again - the pork tent is open.