Not Eudora
By Harry Welty
Published June 7, 2002
St. Louis County Election
Avoidance Plan
My favorite
County
Board member, Joanne Fay, is suing the St. Louis County
Board. Go Joanne!
Nobody pays much attention to the
County
Board
. Its plethora of social welfare agencies seem irrelevant to well-to-do voters
and its vast size (It’s bigger than
Rhode Island
,
Delaware
or
Connecticut
) means that all sorts of interest groups can lobby it without much public
scrutiny. Its most vigilant and vocal critics are the almost anonymous
representatives of the county’s seventy miniscule township boards. This is
really too bad because the County is a political behemoth that spends half again
as much money as the City of
Duluth
and the Duluth Schools combined.
So. Just what has the
County
Board
done to bring about this suit? It has drawn up new political boundaries that
keep as much power as possible in the hands of northern county commissioners
while protecting their
Duluth
area ally Peg Sweeney. By Joanne Fay’s calculations the Board’s new
boundaries fail to meet the standards for redistricting adopted by the Supreme
Court in 1954 – “one man one vote.” Before that decision rural legislators
had a stranglehold on most state legislatures because their thinly populated
rural counties had more representatives than teeming big city districts. This
seems to be the goal of the St. Louis County Board.
Redistricting is a big deal. Next year at least one fourth
of
Minnesota
’s legislators will be brand new; probably more unless every incumbent wins
reelection, which would be difficult since many incumbents have to run against
each other.
The 2002 Court drawn plan for redistricting kept
legislative districts remarkably close in population. Out of 134 House districts
the biggest difference in population between the most populous district, with
36,998 residents, and the smallest, at 36,424, is less than one percent! New
demographic map making software makes drawing these districts as easy as pie. In
stark contrast the proposed St. Louis County Board districts range from 26,227
to 31,433 residents. Although these two districts only vary from an average size
by ten percent, the former is almost 20 percent smaller than the latter. The
former is Commissioner Forsman’s thinly populated northern district. The later
is the growing suburban area represented by Peg Sweeney. Her constituents will
have 20 percent less voting power on the Board than Mike Forsman’s
constituents if the Board plan is adopted.
It took some doing to come up with this contested
redistricting proposal. Eleven plans were drawn up and presented to the
County
Board
. The proposal adopted by the Board, and challenged by Commissioner Fay, was the
only plan that both the
County
Auditor
and the
County
Attorney
rejected. It was also the only one that spared Peg Sweeney from having to run
for reelection. Although it may technically comply with the ten percent
deviation rule it ignores the fact that the US Census mistakenly took 600 of
Peg’s constituents and gave them to
Duluth
. Even without these residents (Hermantown federal prisoners) tipping the scales
for Sweeney, her district is only 24 residents shy of a new election.
By contrast the
Duluth
School District
’s redistricting was quite civilized. Our
Duluth
school administrators drew up new districts that only varied by 2 percent in
population. My Second District seat is the smallest with 23,078 residents
compared to 23,817 residents in the larger First District. No school board
member will have to run for reelection because of a shift of population.
Poor Dennis Fink of
Duluth
. His district’s population has changed enough to warrant a new election. None
of the northern Commissioners are sorry to see him scramble as long as they can
keep Peg Sweeney in her burgeoning district. If they can keep their small
districts and keep the
Duluth
commissioners off balance they will continue to control the
County
Board
with its vast responsibilities.
To accomplish this, the Commissioners had to help their
newest member, Paul Plesha, by removing
Colvin
Township
from his already small district. Paul’s toughest challenger was the Chairman
of the Colvin Town Board and Paul didn’t want to run against him again. But
subtracting Colvin from Paul’s district required an addition and Biwabik was
removed from Mike Forsman’s District. This of course made Mike Forsman’s
vast 4th District the smallest of the lot, despite the addition of
half a dozen lightly populated townships.
Joanne has filed a writ of mandamus to prevent the county
redistricting plan from going into effect. In fact, she’s asking the court to
draw up a new plan because the
County
Board
has made such a hash of things. Wish her luck.
Joanne hired an attorney before thinking about how to
pay the legal expenses. She just figured she’d shoulder them herself. Forget
that! I’m sending her a check to cover some of the costs and if you’d like
to help make a check out to Joanne Fay and write “redistricting legal fees”
in the memo. Mail it: C/O Harry Welty,
PO Box 3613
,
Duluth
,
MN
55803
Welty is a small time politician who lets it all hang
out at: www.snowbizz.com
Fay Vindicated The Court orders new
elections and a plan is devised thus vindicating Joanne's pursuit of an honest
election and fair reapportionment - from the News Tribune 8-1-2002
