Activists sue to force City Council expansion, redistricting
The Chronicle's Bradley Olson reports that activists have sued to force Mayor White's administration to expand City Council:
Community activists have filed a lawsuit alleging the city of Houston has violated the Voting Rights Act by putting off the redistricting of City Council boundaries as required by its own charter and a decades-old court settlement.
The lawsuit, which seeks to force the city to begin redrawing voting boundaries, could have far-reaching implications, including delaying an upcoming special election to fill the council seat vacated by Sheriff Adrian Garcia and, possibly, even the November elections, plaintiffs claim.
Mayor Bill White, all 13 council members and City Controller Annise Parker are named as co-defendants in the suit, which was filed in federal court today.
The thrust of the filing is that the city is required, based on a 1979 agreement with the Department of Justice to ensure that minorities were fairly represented in local elections, to add two council seats once its population reached 2.1 million.
The city’s failure to take that action has galvanized minority leaders, who see the creation of new seats as a chance to increase the number of minorities on City Council.
For some years now, the administration has been using a population figure beyond 2.1 million (for various funding formulas and the crime rate). It's certainly disingenuous now for the White administration to claim that it doesn't understand the population figures it's been using well enough to expand council and engage in redistricting, although it is true that new census figures would probably make redistricting more accurate and representative.
What a fine mess!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/12/09 09:36 PM | Print | Comments (7)
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