County to draw new lines despite opposition

Sunday, May 7, 2006 | 9:06 a.m.

Clark County plans to defy the Legislature and move forward with a plan to draw new County Commission district lines four years before the next U.S. Census, despite a recent opinion by the Legislature's attorneys saying the county is restricted from doing so.

State law does not permit counties to draw district lines based on population figures other than those produced by the U.S. Census Bureau every 10 years, according to an opinion from the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

But a majority of Clark County commissioners, arguing they can do as they please, are working to implement a plan that would shift 22 percent of county residents into new districts.

Although redistricting is normally done after the decennial U.S. Census, county officials say it is essential to redraw the lines now because lopsided growth across the county since the 2000 Census has created a 45 percent population deviation between the smallest and largest districts.

In bucking the Legislature, commissioners are relying on a 1998 opinion from then-Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, which says commissioners have the authority to redistrict before the census to preserve the "one person, one vote" principle, meaning they can redistrict to ensure that residents are equally represented.

The attorney general's opinion said non-census data can be used "if the data has a very high degree of accuracy."

"The attorney general is the top law enforcement person in Nevada, so we look to him," said Don Burnette, the county's chief administrative officer.

Commission Chairman Rory Reid said the redistricting question essentially comes down to a question of "competing legal opinions."

"We certainly are interested in what our lawyers tell us we can do," Reid said.

While the Legislature is limited in what it can do to prevent Clark County from ignoring its interpretation of state law, the legislative position could create problems for the county if its new districts are challenged.

Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas, said her constituents are concerned about whether they will be able to vote in the next commission election if they are moved into a district represented by a commissioner who is up for election later than the commissioner in their current district.

While commissioners say they plan to wait to implement the plan until after the November election, redistricting could result in some residents not getting an opportunity to vote for a commissioner for six years, rather than the typical four.

That could open up legal challenges.

"I believe they could use (the Legislative Counsel Bureau's opinion) to challenge it," Kirkpatrick said.

Assemblyman David Parks, D-Las Vegas, agreed.

"The Board of County Commissioners lacks the authority to adopt new County Commission districts," he said. "I think it would open it to the public for potential challenges, certainly."

Parks is chairman of the Assembly Government Affairs Committee, which killed a proposal from Clark County last year that would have authorized commissioners to redistrict mid-decade.

In fact, the Legislature has rejected at least four other similar proposals during the past 15 years.

Unlike his colleagues, Commissioner Tom Collins said he does not believe the county's legal grounds for redistricting are solid enough.

"This says they can do it if they go knocking door to door," said Collins, pointing at a copy of the attorney general's opinion. "They're not going to do that."

The county is relying instead on the number of housing units and occupancy rates in each ZIP code and other county data to determine population figures.

Collins pointed out that not long ago, the county's own attorney said commissioners lacked authority to redistrict mid-census.

"Our opinion ... is that the Legislature must authorize any reapportionment of commission districts, which is to occur more frequently than the national Decennial Census," assistant district attorney S. Mahlon Edwards wrote in 1996.

Parks said he suspects the commissioners' wish to proceed with a redistricting plan now has more to do with politics than with population growth.

"I think that a large part of that - this is my guess - is that there is a desire on part of the incumbent in District F to transform that district from a Democratic to a Republican seat," he said.

Under the county's proposed redistricting plan, District F Commissioner Lynnette Boggs McDonald, a Republican, would see her district switch from predominantly Democratic to predominantly Republican.

Boggs McDonald has dismissed such claims, stressing that she already won the seat when it was more Democratic. Under the new plan, registered Republicans in District F would edge Democrats by 40.05 percent to 39.52 percent.