Voting Rights ... what was the original issue?

[bwilson4web]

I saw references to a voting rights case involving Shelby county and
Calera city. What I found curious was the nearly complete absence of a
description of what happened . . . the original issue. Then I found
this source:

http://bombadays.blogspot.com/2008/09/shelby-county-reporter-article.html

". . . The new voting lines were drawn as a response to population
growth in Calera. The city has grown from 3,158 in the year 2000 to
about 10,800 now. The voting lines are intended to even out the
population in each district, Ellis said.

"All cities have to keep their populations even among their
districts," Ellis said. "Under federal law, you have to redistrict to
get approximately the same number of people in each district."

Also, according to a letter sent by Assistant Attorney General Grace
Chung Becker, the city has not submitted notifications for 177 adopted
annexations during the past 13 years. The population growth that
spurred the new voting lines is due primarily to residential
development on those annexations, Becker wrote.

Under the old district plan, District 2 was a black-majority voting
district, and the district has had black representation on the council
for 20 years. Under the new plan, District 2 is no longer a black-
majority district.

In the Aug. 26 election, Eric Snyder, who is white, received 169 votes
to defeat the incumbent, Ernest Montgomery, who is black and who
received 167 votes.
. . ."

Redistricting is an interesting but complex problem. Obviously, lines
can be drawn to dictate a result so the Texas Republicans pretty well
corralled the Democrats. The open question is whether redistricting
was used in Calera to coral the black residents but we don't have
enough information to tell.

A result is not proof of malfeasance which is why these are difficult
cases to address . . . unless one has ready access to local census
data. This could also be "gentrification" as populations move. Mostly,
I was curious about the source issue, what led to this case and am a
little surprised that 336 ballots were cast in this particular race.

Bob Wilson