By Joe Olivieri
Friday,23 September, 2011

CENTRAL AUSTIN — Some Central Austin residents will soon have a new county representative.

In August, the Travis County Commissioners Court redrew precinct boundaries to reflect new census data.

One of the court’s biggest challenges was to create a new border between precincts 3 and 4, generally located south of Lady Bird Lake and west of I-35.

Western Travis County’s Precinct 3 needed to shrink; it contained 48 percent of the county’s land and 43,000 more residents than the ideal precinct population, Commissioner Karen Huber said.

Southeast Travis County’s Precinct 4 needed to grow without diluting its majority Hispanic population, Commissioner Margaret Gomez said.

After lengthy deliberation, the court reduced Precinct 3’s population by giving southwest areas to Precinct 4 and areas near Lake Travis to Central Austin’s Precinct 2. The court approved new borders by a 4–1 vote.

Huber opposed, stating that the new map still left Precinct 3 too large and populated for one commissioner to represent.

Deece Eckstein, Travis County intergovernmental relations coordinator, said that the new map took effect Sept. 13 when the county sent it to the Department of Justice for approval.

“For the purpose of electing people, those new boundaries take effect in November for next year’s elections,” he said.

The court and the law

The Travis County Commissioners Court runs, and makes policy for, the county government.

County residents are represented by one of four commissioners—Ron Davis (Precinct 1), Sarah Eckhardt (Precinct 2), Huber (Precinct 3) or Gomez (Precinct 4)—who serve four-year terms.

Federal law requires all single-member precincts to update their borders every 10 years when new census data is available.

Each commissioner’s precinct should ideally have the exact same population, but the law allows up to a 10 percent difference between the populations of the largest and smallest precincts.

The Federal Voting Rights Act states that if a minority population is the majority in a commissioner’s precinct, redistricting cannot significantly reduce its population or influence.

Each of the 17 maps the court considered met the Voting Rights Act’s guidelines, said George Korbel with Korbel Research, the county’s redistricting consulting firm.

The adopted map has an 8.3 percent difference between the largest and smallest precinct populations.

Precinct 3 has 266,927—10,860 more than the ideal of 256,067. Precinct 4 has 245,573—10,494 fewer than the ideal.

Roving borders

Each commissioner’s precinct changed borders as a result of redistricting.

Precinct 3 adopted the following areas from precincts 2 and 4: West 11th Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard between Cliff Street and I-35, west campus area East 11th Street to West Cesar Chavez Street between Colorado Street and I-35 West 12th Street to West Third Street between Colorado Street and Shoal Creek Boulevard South Lamar Boulevard from Lady Bird Lake to West Oltorf Street

Precinct 2 adopted the following areas along I-35 from Precinct 1: Guadalupe Street to I-35 between 45th Street and 53rd Street The Triangle, the area near the intersection of North Lamar Boulevard and Guadalupe Street Duval Street to I-35 between 45th Street and 38th Street, Harris Park Avenue Waller Creek to I-35 between 38th Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard East Martin Luther King Boulevard to 29th Street between Guadalupe Street and Waller Creek

Political and racial makeup

The Commissioners Court weighed several criteria, such as trends in political affiliation, projected future growth and population statistics about racial concentrations.

All four precincts supported President Barack Obama in the 2008 election and Democratic candidate Bill White for governor in 2010. In both races,Huber’s precinct did so by the smallest margins.

Eckhardt said she gave parts of downtown to Huber to compensate for Democratic-leaning precincts Huber gave to Gomez.

The adopted map grew Precinct 4’s majority Hispanic population from 56 percent to 56.1 percent.

“In the west, I took in a lot of Hispanics,” Gomez said. “Those precincts have a lot in common [with Precinct 4]: a common culture, a common language and education.”

Commissioner reactions

Eckhardt called the map “serviceable” and said the flavor of her precinct has changed.

Losing Pflugerville to Precinct 1 was a big change and her gains along I-35 make her “the eighth member of the Austin City Council,” she said.

Eckhardt said she now represents areas near Steiner Ranch and FM 620, which have their own issues and policy preferences.

Gomez said that although redistricting is “always a tough situation,” she said thought the process went well.

“[Precinct 4] had to grow,” she said. “It was and remains the smallest precinct. I couldn’t afford to give up any population. I was told that for every precinct I gave up, I’d have to take two to make up for it.”

Huber said she was unhappy with how the redistricting process went and how she had been “out-voted.”

“I have 14 municipalities in my precinct [not including Austin]. Think of all of the municipal players involved,” she said. “I have a section of downtown Austin now. Think of all of the special interests, transportation and mobility issues I have to be a part of now.” She said her precinct has nine emergency service precincts, 39 emergency service district appointments, four chambers of commerce and six school precincts, not including Austin .

“ I wish we could have done better,” she said.

Link to article online