Council redistricting raises problem

Diana Sahagun

Monday, April 29, 2002 | 10:04 a.m.

Las Vegas Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald plans to ask her colleagues to delay redistricting council boundaries until after the spring 2003 election to protect the rights of more than 4,000 voters.

Boggs McDonald said she plans to present the idea at Wednesday's council meeting as one solution to ease the woes of voters living in the Charleston Heights area.

Under the proposed redistricting map, five precincts located in Ward 1 would be drawn into her district this year and would not be able to vote for a council representative for eight years.

Juanita Clark, a member of the Charleston Heights Neighborhood Preservation Group, said it's not fair that the community would have to wait nearly a decade to vote for a council representative. If the proposal can't be delayed, she said, residents should be able to vote whether they approve of the redistricting.

"We're trying to save a neighborhood here," Clark said.

Boggs McDonald announced Thursday night that she would protest the redistricting proposal, saying the residents would be disenfranchised from voting if the city adopts the plan. She said delaying redistricting until after the spring 2003 election is the only way to protect the voting rights of the neighborhood. The residents would have the chance to vote for the Ward 1 seat before lines would be redrawn.

Council members run in staggered terms every four years.

Waiting until 2003, Boggs McDonald said, would also allow more accurate population numbers to be collected. Because of the city's rapid growth -- and because the map is based on 2000 Census numbers -- the city might have to redistrict again in six months, she said.

Retired Wisconsin Judge Frederick Kessler, who was hired by the city to redraw the boundaries, said delaying redistricting would open the city to legal challenges. The law requires the boundaries be changed before the next election, he said.

"(The council) wouldn't be able to sit there and delay it because then it immediately would fall to another legal challenge, 'one man one vote,' " he said.

Kessler said the issue is a common problem because most public officials have staggered terms. Whenever a district is shifted, Kessler said, there remains a risk that some voters will not have the opportunity to vote for several years.

"It's a tragedy, but the only way to avoid it is have two-year terms for everyone, and the city chose not to do that," Kessler said. "Or else have at-large elections."

Boggs McDonald said the matter will likely end up in the courts, and said the city should side with the residents, even if it means delaying redistricting.

"I think that the city would have a stronger position to say we delayed based on the fairness principles of the 14th Amendment," she said. "I would rather be defending from that position than the position that we denied people the right to vote."

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 would not vote again until 2005, when the Ward 2 seat is on the ballot.

Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the the law itself should be changed to ensure the rights of voters. ACLU's national Voting Rights Project team is researching the city's issue and might sue if the council approves the plan, Peck said.

"Certainly the law is flawed because the result is terribly perverse. It obviously completely strips an entire neighborhood of any right to vote," Peck said.