Friday, May 5, 2006 | 7:38 a.m.
Clark County wants to get rid of the dragon's neck and the finger. But in doing so, it might wind up with three hammerheads.
While that may not sound like politics, that jargon in fact offers an insider's glimpse at the politics of redistricting, now playing out as Clark County commissioners prepare to redraw district lines - a decision that could shape future election results and governmental actions.
Clark County's current commission district lines, which look as if they could have been drawn by a blindfolded toddler, are so convoluted that commissioners often have no idea whether citizens who approach them are in their districts.
"To this day I couldn't tell you where the lines are," Commissioner Bruce Woodbury said. "A lot of times (people) give me an address or location and I don't know if they are in my district or not, so I just try to treat anyone who comes to me like they live in my district."
Commissioners are addressing that problem and others with a new redistricting plan. Citing the region's rapid growth and the resulting lopsidedness of population among the seven districts, the majority of commissioners favor taking the extraordinary step of redistricting the county four years before the next census, when it normally occurs.
The public has much at stake in the process, including the fact that nearly one in four residents will be placed in a new district. In addition, politically motivated redistricting, which has occurred in the past, if repeated, has the potential to dilute certain voting blocs and tilt swing districts in favor of Republicans or Democrats.
Despite that, the public has displayed close to complete disinterest in the redistricting process. At eight public meetings held by commissioners to gather input, only about 40 people showed up. Some of the meetings attracted not a single resident.
"It's not a very sexy topic," said Michael Green, a history professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada.
Redistricting everywhere often gets dismissed as mere inside baseball, with residents failing to realize it plays a significant role in who wins the game later.
But Clark County is particularly prone to an uninvolved public on such issues.
"It's endemic to Las Vegas," Green said. "The reason they need to redistrict is the very reason people don't show up. The population is growing so fast it is hard for the government to keep up with the people and the people have a hard time keeping up with government."
Another reason for public apathy is cynicism, Green said, a commodity rampant in Clark County these days.
"The county commission is trying to work out redistricting and a federal jury is about to work out whether to send two county commissioners to jail," he said, referring to the public corruption trial of former Commissioners Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey. They are accused of taking bribes from former strip club owner Michael Galardi in exchange for votes favorable to his establishments. Another former commissioner, Erin Kenny, has confessed to taking bribes and is testifying for prosecutors in exchange for a lighter sentence.
All three were on the board in 2001, when commissioners last redrew district lines.
The lack of public input during the 2001 process was more a result of the closed-door process than public apathy. With the decisions about how to redraw the lines after the 2000 Census being made in private, the public did not have a chance to chime in until the commission meeting when the new districts were approved.
Nonetheless, that experience reveals the potential dangers inherent in an unwatched redistricting process. County officials say there's a reason that county districts look as if they were made with a cookie cutter that had a run-in with the garbage disposal.
"There was some pretty intense gerrymandering," Woodbury said.
Commissioners peddled constituents with the audacity of a sidewalk vendor, striking deals to stack the political deck in their favor.
"Last time, two of my colleagues, Erin Kenny and Dario Herrera, wanted to have more Democrats," Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates said. As a relatively safe incumbent, she obliged. All three are Democrats.
That move helped create the board's current problems. Atkinson Gates' district - perhaps the oldest and slowest-growing in the county - now has fewer than 210,000 residents, 45 percent less than the 326,600 in Woodbury's district, the county's largest.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the population of districts cannot vary by more than 10 percent directly after a redistricting, county officials said.
Other irregularities also came out of the 2001 redistricting, including the manner in which a portion of District B juts out like a large finger into District D. At the very tip of the finger was then-District D representative Kincaid-Chauncey's primary residence. While areas of her district surrounding that finger were stripped away and became part of other districts, she retained the small strip so she would not have to move.
That finger and other irregularities cut into heavily Hispanic populations in the eastern part of Las Vegas, dividing that demographic group instead of consolidating it, said Don Burnette, the county's chief administrative officer.
"We essentially diluted the Hispanic voting bloc, and that's not a good thing," he said.
Another infamous oddity left over from the 2001 redistricting is the so-called "dragon's neck" that bends and twists north from District F - which consists primarily of southwest Clark County - and snakes its way to North Las Vegas.
Unlike the 2001 process, residents now have a chance to participate in redistricting instead of simply complaining about its politically motivated consequences. With a tentative new district map on the table, commissioners plan to hold eight more town advisory board meetings over the next month and a half.
Under the proposed plan, districts' population would vary by no more than about 5 percent. Unlike the counterintuitive 2001 plan, under which the slowest-growing districts started out with the fewest people, the new plan would have the fastest-growing districts starting out with the fewest residents.
It also would help correct irregularities, Burnette said. The finger in District B, for example, would be chopped off and grafted onto District D.
Commissioners seem to generally support the proposal, although they are waiting for public input before making a final decision.
However, some accusations of politicking already are surfacing.
Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, a Republican who represents the predominantly Democratic District F, would see her constituency become primarily Republican under the proposed plan.
Boggs McDonald, however, points out that she won the district when there were more registered Democrats than Republicans and that she will have to do it again in November before the plan would go into effect.
"From a campaign standpoint, it is no different for me," she said.
The proposed change was motivated not by politics, but by a desire to group together "communities of common interest," she said. That means letting go of the older dragon's neck area - and the many Democrats who live there - so that the county's newly developed areas in the southwest are her primary focus.
Atkinson Gates, however, sees the proposed district change in a different light.
"This time around, Commissioner Boggs McDonald wanted to have more of a Republican district," she said.
Commissioner Tom Collins has other complaints about the redistricting plan, arguing that the proposal does not go far enough to eliminate baffling man-made boundaries.
"Now you've got three hammerheads," he said of the dragon's neck area. "It is worse than before."
Redistricting midcensus also is a concern, he said.
Depending on how the county redistricts after the 2010 Census, some residents might not be able to vote in a county commission race for six years, Collins said.
If approved, the proposed redistricting - called "Plan Z" - would not take effect until after the November election, possibly in January, when new commission terms will start. Still, thousands of people would be voting for a commissioner who would no longer represent them soon after the election.
The county will hold its first public meeting on the topic at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Lone Mountain Citizens Advisory Council meeting.
Commissioners hope tacking the meeting to a previously scheduled advisory council session might rope in more citizens. Just in case, county staff is preparing some commercials about the meetings to air on public television.
archive
