Wednesday, April 8, 1998 | 10:18 a.m.
A Clark County Commission plan to redraw election district boundaries in time for the 2000 elections depends on what the state attorney general has to say about the method used to establish the population of each precinct.
The County Commission Tuesday voted 6-1 to approve a reapportionment plan using staff-generated estimates instead of more accurate census data, despite warnings that such data would not withstand a court challenge.
"I believe what we're doing here is unconstitutional," Commissioner Myrna Williams, the sole dissenting vote, said via telephone. "I don't believe we should be spending taxpayers' money doing something that will wind up in court and be invalidated."
State Sen. Joe Neal, invited by Williams to address the commission, said the state constitution and law requires the county to use census information or data as accurate as the census.
"Estimates will not stand up constitutionally," said Neal, D-North Las Vegas. "I ask you to wait rather than have a costly court fight."
Beatrice Turner, who is part of a federal lawsuit claiming the city of Las Vegas reapportionment diluted minority representation by combining historically black and Hispanic populations into one ward, told commissioners to count on it.
"You will be sued if the county thinks it can do to us what the city did," Turner said. "It ain't gonna happen."
On the side of caution, the board also agreed not to move forward until its got an opinion from the attorney general clarifying what methodology could legally be used to determine population.
"We would not be doing anyone a service or correcting disproportionate representation or preserving the one person, one vote doctrine if the numbers are off," Commissioner Mary Kincaid said.
The county plan would have staff generate demographics based on the best available population estimates which would then be checked over by a professional consultant.
In addition, the county would appoint a citizens' group to oversee the redrawing of district lines with the help of a consultant before bringing the new districts to the commission for final approval.
Kincaid said staff can start working on population estimates, but she doesn't want to hire consultants to help facilitate the process "until we have that information on the population."
While the attorney general has issued an opinion that counties can reapportion more frequently than every 10 years -- the question remains whether it can rely on data less accurate than the biennial census.
"They suggested we should request an opinion of them as to what information we should use," Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates said.
Commissioner Lorraine Hunt was confident the staff could come up with accurate information.
"To wait two to four years would be disingenuous to voters," said Hunt, who is giving up her commission district seat to run for Lt. Governor and will step down from the commission in December.
Commissioner Erin Kenny, also participating by phone, called the accuracy issue a "red herring" because the population would have grown by 5-6 percent by the time the county could reapportion districts after the 2000 census.
"The most American thing is to redistrict and not worry about getting sued," Kenny said in support of a motion made by Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, who also lacked concern about potential legal action.
"If this goes to federal court then we're going to have to follow a federal ruling one way or another," Woodbury said.
Woodbury said the county already had an opinion from the attorney general that it could use reliable estimates generated by county staff to bring districts back into balance.
"We need to do something," Woodbury said. "I have no problem if there's an ambiguity that we seek clarification, but let's move forward."
Gates said it was ironic that 10 years ago, Woodbury and other commissioners were fighting an attempt by the state Republican Party to force reapportionment prior to the 1990 census.
The party filed an injunction to force the county to adopt a new district map, but the county opposed it and won.
"It was more out of whack than today," Gates said -- 58 percent between the largest and smallest district.
Woodbury said he had learned a lot since that time and now sees the wisdom of redrawing boundaries more frequently to meet the changes brought on by growth. Woodbury has the largest district with 227,000 residents while Gates has the smallest district with 124,000 residents -- a gap of 45 percent.
Redistricting must be completed by June 1999 for the Election Department to make the changes needed for the 2000 elections.
The advisory group would be drawn from the 1998 Early Voting Advisory Board appointed to assist the Election Department. It includes members of the Culinary Union, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, the ACLU and the major political parties.
Gates was curious how the advisory group was going to obtain accurate information to determine where minority populations and communities of interest were located without using census data.
"I don't know how you're going to ask this committee to do this when the communities of interest are valley-wide," Gates said.
Assistant County Manager Bonnie Rinaldi conceded the difficulty was there was "very little hardcore data of which precincts people live in other than the census."
And Comprehensive Planning Director Rick Holmes said that the county's estimates are less accurate as the geographic boundaries become more specific. While countywide population numbers are fairly accurate, the district numbers could be off by as much as 15 percent.
"I have no objection to redistrict," Williams said. "But I don't believe the methodology suggested could possibly be accurate."
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