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If you’ve been watching the news or reading the newspaper, you’ve probably seen a story or 12 about redistricting. Federal, State and Local levels of government are in the process of doing that very thing here in Tennessee. The photo to the left is House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh and Caucus Chair Mike Turner. Both Democratic Representatives in the Tennessee House, they were forced to make a compromise, and did so in the best way they knew how. Rock, Paper, Scissors.

The process at the state level has been shrouded in mystery. Maps weren’t released to the public until a week before session and they’ve been pretty well rammed through both legislative bodies. Overall, while the state process has been about as transparent as a slab of concrete and rife with a bad aftertaste of blind self-interest trumping leadership.

By contrast, the process at the County level has been pretty out in the open. There are more plans than you can shake a stick at here in Shelby County, and all of them can be found here as well as their supporting documents. That doesn’t mean it’s been all roses.

Thursday it was reported that an Arlington Chamber of Commerce meeting turned into a rumble between competing sides of the redistricting battle here in the County. Last night, Terry Roland’s community meeting in Collierville was hijacked resulting in a police visit to the event.

With all the shenanigans surrounding the issue, it would seem that today’s meeting of the County Commission would have the potential to be a barn burner, something confirmed on twitter yesterday by Commissioner Chris Thomas to Lauren Lee of Fox 13.

No one knows what Thomas, et. al. have up their sleeve, but this kind of confidence can only come from coordinating with other elected officials, which just may be a violation of those Sunshine Laws the TN House has decided not to mess with this year.

On the Issue

While the issue of redistricting in the County Government could be framed as an intellectual debate over single-member versus multi-member districts, the reality is this all comes down to ideology. Commissioners Thomas, Bunker, Taylor and Shafer want to ensure that there are six safe Republican seats on the Commission. Mind you “safe” means 60% or more. The easiest way to do that is to make huge districts that pack all the Democrats they can into two-three member districts, and all the Republicans they can into two other three member districts. The final district would be what it would be. Voila! a 7-6 split on party and most likely racial lines.

Now, this only seems fair to the side that’s getting disproportionately more than they deserve. In committee discussions from December, Bunker, Thomas and Taylor all spoke of their concerns about the County Commission becoming 8-5 or worse, 9-4 based on partisanship. Oh the humanity!

Breaking Down Partisanship

I decided to look at some election results. All of these are general elections and can be found at the TN Secretary of State website.

What does this tell us? Shelby County votes Democratic more often than not, surprise, surprise. There is only one instance when Republicans outperformed Democrats in Shelby Co. in the past five November elections, Sen. Lamar Alexander, in 2008.

Taken all together, Shelby County consistently votes about 60.6% Democratic, which translates to 7.88 members of the County Commission.

This is why Taylor, Bunker, Shafer, and Thomas are concerned. This is why they’re asking for 60% majorities in Republican districts by partisanship. This is why they want huge districts. Its easier for a powerful minority to neutralize the majority that way.

African-Americans have dealt with this kind of chicanery since the end of the Civil War. Now, thanks to the Voting Rights Act and several court cases, African-Americans MUST be represented in proportion to their population. Partisanship is not protected, and these four Republicans know they will be rewarded by members of their party for artificially maintaining a 7-6 balance.

What About the Other Three?

Of course, this opens up the question of why Commissioners Brooks, Burgess and Ford, all Democrats, support a plan that would artificially prop up a fledgling Republican minority.

Brooks, who is term-limited, has indicated she would like to see voter outreach and education if the districts are changed to single member districts. Seems simple enough. Maybe someone should offer that.

Burgess has been relatively silent on the issue. I wouldn’t want to opine about his motivations without further information.

Ford, the maker of the motion, with the blessing and assistance of Interim Commissioner Brent Taylor and GOP redistricting guru John Ryder, has been very clear. He has future ambitions. Just days after getting elected in an unopposed August General election, Ford indicated that he would like, someday, to be Mayor.

There’s nothing wrong with ambition. Truth is, ambition can be a motivator that drives people to do more and better than they might do otherwise. We should want driven representatives who use their office to prove their worth and build a name for themselves by representing their constituents in a way that makes everyone want to be represented by them.

But there’s also a downside to ambition. The downside is individuals can work to game the system for short-term gains or worse, lose sight of what they’re supposed to be doing in the name of blind self-interest.

I don’t know that this is what’s motivating Ford, but he has communicated no real rationale for his position other than he doesn’t want the status quo to change and he wants his shot at incumbency protection.

Ahh, more altruism.

It’s About Representing the People that are There Not Protecting Your Incumbency

The original idea about the Census, reapportionment, and redistricting was to ensure that states were getting the representation in the Federal government that their populations deserved. The process has always been political, so lets not fool ourselves.

But in addition it should be about the legislative body that results sharing common interests with the communities they represent. That’s the danger of packing, stacking, and gerrymandering; the people aren’t represented as well as they could be.

My inner optimist wants it to be about actually representing the people, which is one of the reasons I support single member districts. In fact, for the entirety of my time writing at this blog I have advocated for smaller, more direct representation in local government. I have argued that we should have more direct representation in Shelby County than we do in Nashville (we don’t by the way), and that districts should be a collection of neighborhoods rather than these behemoths that cover nearly one-quarter of the population of the County.

Regardless of your partisan leanings, this is something we all should want. Folks in Whitehaven have decidely different challenges facing their communities than those near Riverdale. Folks in Midtown have a different perspective than those in Germantown. Yet, each of these pairings fall into districts that include each other. Downtown is different from Raleigh/Frayser and Millington is different from Collierville. Again, those areas are paired for partisan considerations only, not actual governing from those communities and for those communities.

This is what should be one of the key considerations in the redistricting process. Right now, we have members who are more concerned with maintaining artificial partisan counts and ensuring their incumbency. Truth be told, if you’re doing your job, incumbency isn’t something you will have to worry about.

Making Better Government

If we want a better, more responsive legislative body in the Shelby County Commission, we should demand that the districts be smaller, and closer to the people. Its not about making districts that are easier to run for, its about representing the people the best way possible. Maybe some believe these huge three member districts are better because they ensure that someone is responsive if you get a deadbeat. Well, if you do get a deadbeat, other members of the body shouldn’t be put in the position of covering for him/her thus obscuring reality to the people they are tasked with representing. If they’re bad at their job, their bosses, the voters, should know so they don’t make the same mistake twice.

It should also be about serving communities.

The map to the left shows the current districts and where the members live. Note, the areas where there isn’t a member for miles.

Collierville, Raleigh/Frayser, the Summer Corridor, Bartlett, the list goes on.

Single member districts would give these communities a better chance of having more direct representation in County government.

I keep hearing that no one cares about this stuff, but if you’re irritated with the way the County Commission, or the City Council for that matter, deals with issues… If you feel that your area is getting the shaft, if you wish you were represented by someone within a 4 mile radius, maybe you should consider advocating for single member districts.

I don’t know many people who think the Commission is consistently working in the best interests of the County. Part of that has to do with the way the districts are drawn, because that affects who runs and how close to you they live. The other part, well that’s up to the voters. But we’ll never get there if we just decide to tune out and let whatever is going to happen happen.

You have a voice outside of the ballot box. If you think the current system stinks, I think its time you used it. You can find your County Commissioners here or just email them all at once using this link.

Also, post about this on your Facebook page, and make sure to tag them in your post. Maybe they’ll get the message.

An interesting exchange on the floor of the Tennessee State House today. Democrats introduced a number of amendments to the House Redistricting plan, all of which were placed on the table by the Republican majority; effectively killed.

The final amendment was proposed by Jeanne Richardson. The amendment would have shifted 6 precincts into the new district she and Rep. Antonio Parkinson have been drawn into.

By all accounts, this amendment would have been tabled by the Republicans as well, but that’s not exactly how it worked out.

Here’s the floor debate.

You’ll note, at the end of the video Minority Leader Fitzhugh rightly tried to go into caucus to talk this out. It’s not really good form to send a fellow caucus member’s amendment to the table, especially when its likely to be tabled by the opposing side in the first place.

I understand the emotional nature of the redistricting process, but that shouldn’t trump the desire to maintain the long-term working relationship between caucus members. Rep. Parkinson may find he needs a friendly vote in the future that should be a gimmie, but might not be thanks to this action.

Ed. Note: No one has mentioned anything about withholding votes or not supporting someone’s legislation or anything like that. This is based on what I’ve observed from years of watching the legislative process across Federal, State and Local governments. Legislators have long memories and just like regular people, can hold grudges. Contrary to popular belief, they are only human.

To the surprise of no one, TN Gov. Bill Haslam endorsed Mitt Romney in the Republican primary.

Romney, who has been featured in a hit piece produced by Newt Gingrich’s “Winning Our Future” SuperPAC, which has, perhaps, done the 2012 Obama election team the biggest favor ever. It clearly draws a distinction between what some on the left have called an indistinguishable difference between Romney and Obama. Obama never made millions of dollars from auctioning off American jobs for fun and profit.

But the endorsement by Haslam isn’t surprising at all. Both men grew up sucking on the same brand of silver spoons. Neither have really ever held a job they didn’t either buy, or their daddies didn’t help them get. Both of them have benefitted from a corporate welfare system, established 40 years ago by the Nixon Administration and advanced by every administration since, that values the value of wealthy people over the value of hard work.

If you want to understand why things are the way they are, start looking right there, at the shift in our value system at the highest levels.

This morning, the Washington Post is examining Romney’s gospel of “Creative Destruction”. Here’s a couple of quotes from the article:

But like Romney’s work on all the businesses Bain invested in, the primary goal with these companies wasn’t job creation but making them more profitable and valuable. This meant embracing aspects of capitalism that have unsettled some Americans: laying off workers when necessary, expanding overseas to chase profits and paying top executives significantly more than employees on lower rungs.

–

But some private-equity experts think the link between Bain’s deals and jobs is more tenuous.

“I’ve got a lot of admiration for Bain Capital, but jobs were the byproduct of the mission, not the product,” said Howard Anderson, a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. “The product was to increase wealth, and in some cases it meant expanding the company. In some cases it meant contracting the company.”

Make no mistake about it, Romney’s creative math that shows 100,000 jobs created during his tenure at Bain completely ignores the jobs that were lost to his “creative destruction”. I’m sure, as is testified by the folks featured in Newt’s 30 min. movie, that the people who fell victim to this “creativity” feel like their lives were “destroyed”, at least for a short time.

As the Christian Science Monitor rightly points out:

Gingrich, Perry, and others are putting particular focus on the people who lost their jobs as a result of Romney’s Bain Capital. Gingrich’s Super PAC will be running $3.5 million of ads featuring emotional interviews with some of them.

But what, exactly, are Romney’s opponents proposing to do about layoffs that harm so many people? Millions of Americans have lost their jobs over the last four years – and as a result have often lost their health insurance, their homes, and their savings.

Are Gingrich, Perry, and others proposing to expand health insurance coverage for jobless Americans and their families? All I hear from the Republicans is their determination to repeal the law that President Obama championed – which still leaves millions of Americans uninsured. Do Romney’s opponents have plans to keep people in their homes even when they’ve lost their jobs and can’t pay their mortgages? No. Do they propose expanding unemployment insurance? If memory serves, most of them were opposed to the last extension.

I’m all in favor of reforming capitalism, but you’ll permit me some skepticism when it comes to criticisms of Bain Capital coming from Romney’s Republican opponents. None of these Republican candidates has exactly distinguished himself with new ideas for giving Americans more economic security. To the contrary — until the assault on Romney and Bain Capital — every one of them has been a cheerleader for financial capitalism of the most brutal sort.

The point is, don’t be fooled by Republicans who are currently engaged in attacking Mitt Romney as proponents for rebuilding the diminishing middle class. These attacks are more focused on the self-interest of the attackers…getting elected, than some ideological difference between Romney, Newt, and Perry.

Eventually, Democrats will join the fray in attacking Romney for his exploitation of both American workers and overseas tax havens that have become the rule rather than the exception for amassing great wealth while avoiding taxation. And while there are plenty on the Democratic side that are culpable for the changes in the tax code and regulations that made all this possible, it was driven, from the get go, by the Republican Party.

I love spirited discussions about internal matters that bore the paint off the walls. For some reason, they just give me a little joy. It tells me something about the people writing about them. It tells me they’re paying attention to the details and have actually thought about it and are interested in what others might consider minutiae.

Details matter, and that’s why I was happy to read these four posts about the upcoming vote on lengthening the term of the TNDP Chair – 4 More Years, Rushing and Hushing, Yep, and UPDATE:TNDP Chair Term.

This is the kind of internal stuff that people just don’t think about. In fact, I would bet that most people who self-identify as Democrats have no idea who the current Chair of the Party is, nor do they care. Further, based on participation and the scant number of Executive Committee elections that were actually contested, there’s a great deal of question as to whether people really know how the Chair is selected at all.

Its not that these folks aren’t interested in the fate of the party, its that, like most people, they have lives outside of politics and rely on their elected officials to represent them well on such matters. That’s Representative Democracy.

Anyone can seek to become better informed about the goings on of our party, if they choose. The Party Bylaws are online, and have been since the original Ning redesign back in Spring of 2009. The contact information of the Executive Committee is also online and easily accessible. As are other resources that an interested individual may want to peruse.

One thing that is not readily available online are Agendas and Minutes of the meetings. Our Executive Committee members are elected officials, as set forth by State Law – (TCA 2-13-103). As constituents of these elected officials, we should have access to the Agendas and Minutes of meetings of both parties at our fingertips. Considering the availability of technology this is not a burden. In fact, it would help people understand what the party is doing.

Failing that, you’re best alternative is to get in touch with your Executive Committee members, (everyone has two) and ask them what’s going on or questions about the process. Not quite as open, but easy enough.

But getting back to the minutiae, the question of whether or not the Chair of the party should serve a 2 year or 4 year term is actually pretty important. Four years is a long time. Getting a majority of the Executive Committee to decide to remove a Chair (as set forth in Article V Section 4) is fraught with problems. You don’t try to take down someone if you’re not sure you can do it. Paybacks suck. So with that in mind, a 2 or 4 year term can have long-lasting consequences.

Proponents of 4 year terms say if brings a level of continuity to the office. Its hard to make changes in 2 years. They probably point to the term of the DNC as an example. All of that’s well and good, but the Chair of the DNC is a much more public office. Lots more eyeballs looking. TNDP Chair, not so much.

There is already an issue with transparency, outside the confines of the Executive Committee (which I pointed out earlier concerning Agendas and Minutes), also, the rules of the party outside the By-Laws are not published online, which means that certain processes aren’t known, which leads to all kinds of conspiracy theories and claims of malfeasance a la the Shelby County Re-Org of 2009.

After that mess, there were some assurances that processes and procedures would be more transparent, but that hasn’t really happened. Are two 2 year terms not enough to address these issues, or did they just fall by the way side?

I’m pretty dead set against 4 year terms. I think that while it may guarantee someone good gets to stay in for a while, so do 2 year terms…they just have to get elected again. If they’re doing a good job it shouldn’t be a problem.

Also, I don’t know too many people who are willing to give up 4 years of their life to such a thankless job. Sure, there are some, but four years is a long time for anyone, including a Chair and the Executive Committee to commit to something.

Personally, I think the term should be 2 years with a mandatory retention vote after 1 year. This “vote of confidence” would give the party time to re-adjust if things needed re-adjusting before the elections. It wouldn’t give much continuity, but I’m pretty sure, aside from some key folks, that the staff would be retained, if for no other reason that canning them would really screw things up.

Of course, I’m also the guy that thinks the Chair shouldn’t take a salary, or if they do, it should be minimal. I don’t think being Chair is a full time job. That’s what an Executive Director is for. I don’t think the Chair needs to be hands on, if said chair has effectively communicated a vision and direction for the party with tangible goals, and adequately delegated those tasks.

Realistically, I see the role of the Chair as the “Honorary CEO”. Someone who keeps an eye on what’s going on, makes sure his key staff is achieving goals, and raises money. That’s it.

Last time I checked, honorary positions weren’t compensated.

So, since I don’t think the Chair should be compensated, asking someone to volunteer for 2 years is hard enough, 4 years is madness.

Nope, I’m more interested in the TNDP building a professional staff of qualified individuals that know the state outside the 440 loop. People that know how to organize and support local parties and candidates. People that know their turf and become effective campaigners. They go out and build some successes, then grow up, go out on their own, and find a place to turn around. Wash, rinse, repeat.

If we’re doing that, who the chair is, and how long they serve shouldn’t matter.

When we start really doing that, I’ll be interested in talking about how long the Chair should serve. Until then, how about we focus on some things that really matter like Candidate recruitment and development and fundraising. That’s what actually wins elections.

Yesterday the State House and Senate released their proposed maps for the decennial redistricting that comes right after the decennial census. You can view the State Senate Maps here and the State House Maps here.

There have been numerous reports about what’s going to happen to various locales. News outlets in Memphis have focused on the loss of two House seats and one Senate seat…something I wrote was probably going to happen back in 2009.

So while our standing in the State Legislative bodies may have been diminished, as has our percentage of the population, none of this should surprise anyone.

It also shouldn’t surprise anyone that there are a couple of Shelby Co. legislators drawn together in districts. That’s what happens when an area loses a seat or two. It is inevitable. I sympathize with those who are upset at this reality, but honestly, there’s little that can be done outside of court.

I’m not going to opine as to whether or not the districts are fair or not. Certainly, over the years since Baker v. Carr, the court case that made the state start districting based on population rather than land, there have been plenty of examples of bizarrely drawn districts passing muster. A quick look at the current maps in Shelby Co., particularly Dist. 90 as well as Dist. 83, 84, 95, 91, and 92, which run horizontally and whip and curl around in some cases, shows that shapes just don’t matter that much to the courts.

Of course, the old plan just had 6 of 16 districts in Shelby County shaped like a drawing from a blindfolded child. The proposed map has 8 of 14 districts that take a great deal of creativity to explain (84, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 93, & 97). That’s not to say the districts are unfair, but to say, at first glance, which is all we have, its very difficult to determine which district you might be in based on the information provided.

Maps Don’t Tell Me Anything

While its fun to look at these pretty pictures provided by the House and Senate leadership, they really don’t tell me much…except that a lot of precincts were split in the production of these maps. Anyone with an internet connection and Silverlight can draw a map if they so choose. It’s not that difficult. Translating a map from a drawing on the other hand is very difficult.

Since neither the House nor Senate saw fit to release the precinct information of the districts, all one can do is make a best guess as to what will happen should these districts be adopted. Putting out pretty maps with not so much as population data by district, tells the end user absolutely nothing except the color choices of the person drawing the map and some general ideas.

Sure, in the more rural areas its easier to determine what’s going on. Districts that include two or three counties to get to (or near) their magic number are pretty easy to analyze. Urban areas, where there are any number of existing and new lines possible (including Municipal boundaries, Precincts, Census blocks, Zip codes, etc.) are more difficult. 35 of the 99 members of the House hail from the top four largest counties in the state (Shelby, Davidson, Knox, and Hamilton). Throw in Rutherford, Williamson and Sullivan Counties and that number jumps to 44. But even those last 9 are relatively easy to determine.

Still, let’s not pretend this is transparency. It’s feigned transparency. Until some lists are released, none of this means anything. In fact, its probably more about cutting the wind out of the sails of last minute fundraisers than anything else.

Brazenly Jerkish

There are some things that irritate me about the maps, but that’s to be expected. Lumping Sherry Jones and Mike Stewart into the same district in Nashville only to create an open seat is one of them. This isn’t unfair from a legal point of view, just dickish. I’m sure we’ve done the same thing to folks in the past. This action follows the Republican strategy of attacking the oppositions strengths and turning them into a weakness, a strategy that perhaps we might want to think about.

The same can be said of what they did in Shelby. Three of the four Representatives in Shelby Co. that were lumped together in two districts are relatively new to the body. One has been there forever. But these new folks are also pretty strong voices, whether you like them or not. There are a lot of reasons they were targeted, and one of those reasons is that they are perceived as a threat.

Its interesting to me that the Republicans in the State Senate chose to undercut their youth factor. Kerry Roberts, who worked really hard to win last year, is lumped in with Jim Summerville. I have a sneaking suspicion that one of those two men have an exit strategy. Look for an appointment announcement sometime after session.

Here in Shelby Co., Minority Leader Jim Kyle and Serial Bacon Mailer Brian Kelsey are paired up. This will leave Kyle out in the cold for at least 2 years, while we wait for the term of Kelsey to expire in 2014. I’m not sure how this impacts the “even/odd” set up of the senate districts in the future, but at the very least Senate Republicans did what they wanted to do…screw over the Minority Leader.

Its an open question as to whether or not Kyle will challenge Kelsey in 2014. Since we don’t have any real data on the makeup of the district other than a visual representation, I can only guess about the partisan makeup of the district. Pretty sure its not pretty for Kyle.

One mildly humorous thing I saw in the Senate Districts, is what I call the “visual representation of what Senate Leadership is doing to Democrats”. Its made up of Districts 19 and 21. I don’t think I need to expound on that at all but I bet some State Senators are still laughing about that one.

What Does All This Mean?

Most people don’t think twice about this stuff. I’ve said it over and over again. I’ve experienced it as I wrote about City redistricting, and as I’ve observed the County process. Most folks just don’t think about how they end up in the districts they end up in, they think about who they want to represent them from the available choices, and may bemoan those choices from time to time.

Also, because redistricting comes only once every 10 years, its easy for people to forget, or even just ignore it. For the most part, only the most politically engaged geeks even care about it. Most folks feel it doesn’t impact them, but it does. It can absolutely impact those available choices so many bemoan every two or four years.

Now that the TNGOP has had their hand at this process, there’s little doubt that they’ll do everything possible to keep it. In fact, the very act of redistricting itself probably ensures they’ll stay in power for a while…and because political considerations aren’t covered in Federal law, outside of a few exceptions, I expect the maps to stand and generally agree that most people won’t see the problems.

The big takeaway from this is that other than some maps, we really don’t know all that much more than we did before, and won’t know that much more until the thing is passed and real maps and precinct lists hit the streets. Then we’ll have a better idea of where we stand as a state.

Even without more detail, Democrats know something. They know they’ve got an uphill battle. They know that its going to stink. They also know that Republicans came into power under maps drawn by Democrats, and that all is not lost if we get our game together.

There are a lot of ideas about what that means, but I’ll save that for another post.

See also:

Blue TN
Aunt B
LeftWingCracker
Braisted, 2, 3, 4
KnoxViews
Pith 2, 3, 4, 5

There are probably more, but that’s a start…