Why Does Gahan Want the Court to Redistrict?

While the public mostly ignores redistricting, politicians know in the marrow
of their bones how much redistricting matters. - Behind Closed Doors: The Recurring Plague of Redistricting and the Politics of Geography, Steven Hill.

...and that's the truth. How the lines are drawn is critical, and political. Which makes it all the more peculiar that Jeff Gahan and his colleagues in the majority continue to take the incredible risk that New Albany's City Council district lines will be drawn by someone other than elected officials.

Yet that is what they risk, and continue to risk.

One theory put forward is that if the council were to pass an ordinance redrawing the districts to comply with the actual population shifts between 1990 and 2000 it would be an admission that the districts from which they were elected were illegitimate, making their elections illegitimate, and causing their offices to be declared vacant.

As a matter of course, Democratic Party officials would appoint them to serve out the unexpired terms for the new districts. But the sitting members would have to reside in the newly drawn districts. Since it would be impossible to draw logical and lawful districts that would protect every currently voting member, someone would be permanently removed and replaced.

The special committee of disinterested council members and residents, none of whom took into consideration the residence locations of currently voting members and none of whom sought to protect the currently voting members, demonstrated conclusively that a lawful redistricting would not be able to protect all members. Population shifts make it impossible to do so.

Anyone who wants to prove or disprove it can obtain the committee report, which contains the verified population numbers for each and every census block in New Albany. Pick a corner, pick an edge, and then aggregate a population totaling 6,325 and stop. Then move on to the adjacent geography (the next district) and do the same.

When you are finished (many, many hours later), go to the city's Web site and locate the residences of the six people currently voting on the council and see for yourself how it is not possible to redraw the council districts without creating districts that contain two or more voting members.

What is certain is that a lawful redistricting will be done. Only Gahan, McCartin Benedetti, Price, Coffey, and McLaughlin want the districts to be drawn by someone other than the council. If that were not true, they would pass a lawful district plan immediately and remove forever the possibility that a Federal District Court judge would invite competing plans.


Steven Hill is senior analyst for the Center for Voting and Democracy