Las Vegas election map plan protested

Diana Sahagun and Erin Neff

Friday, April 26, 2002 | 11:09 a.m.

Las Vegas Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald plans to protest the city's latest redistricting proposal, saying it violates the constitutional rights of nearly 4,000 voters by not giving them a chance to vote until 2005.

In a statement released Thursday night Boggs McDonald said under the new proposal, five precincts currently in Ward 1, which would be redrawn into her ward, would be disenfranchised from voting if the city adopts the plan.

Boggs McDonald said this morning that the plan would mean the voters in those precincts would go eight years without voting for a council representative.

The precincts have been previously redistricted and because the election cycles for the council members are different, they have gone without voting for a councilmember since 1997.

"If we can disenfranchise nearly 4,000 voters, who's next?" said Boggs McDonald, who called this one of the most serious issues she has faced.

Boggs McDonald called on the American Civil Liberties Union to join her in a neighborhood meeting at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Charleston Heights Art Center. The council is scheduled to discuss the new maps during Wednesday's meeting.

Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said the plan "raises very serious questions that we at the ACLU of Nevada are looking into with the help of our national voting rights project."

"On the face of it, the plan disenfranchises a significant number of voters," Peck said. "People are entitled to vote for their representative and this plan robs some of that opportunity."

Former Judge Frederick Kessler, who redrew the boundaries for the city, could not be reached for comment this morning. But in an interview with the Sun last week, Kessler acknowledged the possible scenario that voters would not be able to vote for a candidate for up to nine years, but said it would withstand a legal challenge.

"I wish we could have resolved it, but it's not an impediment to redistricting," Kessler said.

Boggs McDonald's protest about disenfranchising voters is certainly a city issue, but political observers say her motives are questionable as a result of her bid for Congress.

"I think she's probably upset because these are some of the few people who have seen her name on a ballot," said Peggy Egan, campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley in her re-election bid for the 1st Congressional District.

Boggs McDonald, a Republican, is running against Berkley in a district with 35,578 more Democrats. Berkley also has eight times as much money in the bank for the race as does Boggs McDonald.

Egan said she thinks Boggs McDonald's protest is a "grab to get some press" for her campaign.

Boggs McDonald said the issue is strictly a constitutional matter, not a political one.

"Regardless of the outcome I'm going to be a public servant in this community, whether as a councilwoman or congresswoman, and I have a responsibility to uphold," she said.

Protests over redistricting plans typically complain about treatment of minority residents or about treatment of one party versus another.

In this case, Boggs McDonald is fighting for a neighborhood -- that although is currently not in her ward -- is the one in which she previously lived.

Residents living in the affected five precincts last voted for the Ward 2 seat in 1997. When the city went through a redistricting process in 1999 to add two new council seats, the five precincts were drawn into Councilman Michael McDonald's ward.

Under the proposal, those voters will be drawn back into Boggs McDonald's ward and, at the earliest, would not vote again until 2005, when the Ward 2 seat is on the ballot.

Boggs McDonald said the proposal would create a scenario where these voters would be forced to wait nearly an entire decade to vote for the representative on the council. The situation would disenfranchise voters from participating in the election and deny them their fundamental right to vote, she said.

By comparison, other neighborhoods have had the chance to vote three times in the course of four years, so-called "hyper" vote precincts.

In 1999, the precincts near Lake Mead Boulevard and Washington Avenue, between Rainbow Boulevard and Rancho Drive, were located in Ward 1 and voters elected Boggs McDonald. Those precincts were redrawn into the nearly created Ward 5 seat, in which they voted to elect Councilman Lawrence Weekly in the April 2001 primary. Weekly's seat will be on the ballot again in 2003, to allow the ward to be on the same election cycle as the other odd-numbered wards.