Evanston Roundtable

November 5, 2003

Rules Committee Selects Map Drawn by Two Aldermen
By Mary Helt Gavin

On Monday the Rules Committee of City Council selected a map - number 15 - drawn by two aldermen as its choice to recommend to City Council for the redistricting of the City's wards. The map, drawn by Alderman Lionel Jean-Baptiste, 2nd Ward, and Steven Bernstein, 4th Ward, preserves a majority black population in the Second and Fifth Wards. It also shifts several hundred university students to the Seventh Ward by making that ward into an arc that fits around the First Ward from the north and the east.

Two other maps were introduced at the meeting, one by the Citizens' Ward Redistricting Committee and one by Northwestern University's Associated Student Government, but aldermen focused their attention on map 15.

Though the vote was 7-2 in approving the map, three aldermen in fact objected to it.

The map, which sources told the RoundTable was the result of a deal struck over the weekend, highlights some of the issues that arose during the redistricting process: the basis on which the maps should be drawn; whether it was necessary to preserve a majority of black voters (or persons, depending on the standard used) in Second and Fifth Wards; and whether it was necessary to retain Northwestern University students as a community of interest.

Standard for redistricting
Most maps submitted to the Rules Committee over the summer were drawn on the basis of redistributing the voting age (18 and over) population, based upon recommendations from First Assistant Corporation Counsel Herb Hill. At the Oct. 20 public hearing, the local NAACP challenged that recommendation; a memo by Mr. Hill submitted for the Nov. 3 meeting advised that the City Council could choose either standard. The map approved by the Rules Committee redraws the wards on the basis of total population.

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Preserving minority representation in two wards
Under the Rules Committee map, the Second and Fifth Wards each retain a majority black population - 51.4 percent in the Second Ward and 55.3 percent in the Fifth Ward. Other maps - in particular, maps 7a (proposed by the NAACP), 13b (proposed by the Citizens' Ward Redistricting Committee) and 14 (proposed by External Relations of NU's Associated Student Government) - also preserved the black representation in those two wards. However, said Alderman Elizabeth Tisdahl when she ultimately voted for the map, the only way that the Second and Fifth Wards' majority populations would be preserved was to approve map 15.

"It's political," Ald. Bernstein told Ald. Tisdahl.
" We are voting to redistrict to elect aldermen."

She said she voted for map 15, "because it is the only map to preserve two majority African American wards that will get 5 votes." She challenged her colleagues to say which of the other maps that preserved minority representation in the Second and Fifth wards would garner 5 votes but was met with silence.

Ald. Tisdahl asked Ald. Bernstein, "Which of your priorities does map 15 accomplish that map 7a does not?"

Ald. Bernstein said, "As I recall I actually liked map 7a, but there was too much concentration of students. There was a large enough population to elect a student as alderman." However, Ald. Bernstein's and Jean-Baptiste's map so concentrates the university student population that about 50 percent of the Seventh Ward would be students, said Ald. Tisdahl. The NAACP map, 7a, retained for the most part the present student population in the First Ward; Alderman Arthur Newman, First Ward, has been pressing his colleagues for several months to shift 1,600 students from his ward.

Ald. Newman also pointed out that diversity encompassed more than race, saying he wanted more than just condominiums, senior housing and dorms in his ward; he wanted to keep as many single family homes as possible. In defending the shift of students to the Seventh Ward, he said, "People who sit on the Council have a right to say that students don't vote in the Seventh Ward."

"It's political," Ald. Bernstein told Ald. Tisdahl. "We are voting to redistrict to elect aldermen."

Diluting the student vote
Over the past weeks there has been a debate about the fairness and the legality of diluting the Northwestern University student vote. The memo from Mr. Hill advised that NU students are not a "community of interest" and that remaps need not consider diluting or preserving the student vote. Maps 7a, 13b, 14 and others kept the majority of NU students in the First Ward, while retaining some students in the Fifth and Seventh Wards.

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Diminishing the Eighth Ward?
Alderman Ann Rainey, 8th Ward, called map 15 "reprehensible," because the Eighth Ward lost population. She said, "My ward has 6,400 persons over 18; what has happened here is that number has been slashed to 5,987. You've taken away 483 adults from my ward. I want to make it very clear��I don't have any personal feelings about any piece of that ward, but leave me with a respectable number of voters��Go back to the drawing board."

The Vote
In the discussion leading up to the vote, Ald. Tisdahl challenged her colleagues to endorse other maps that preserved a majority of black persons in Wards Two and Five. "The only reason I will consider voting for proposal 15 is that it is the only map [with majority of black voters in 2 wards] that can get 5 votes. I do not believe that we can get 5 votes to support the NAACP map. But I would like to send the NAACP map to Council. I would like to hear the members of this Council who say they are ��stand-up' people to vote on the NAACP map. We owe it to the NAACP, and we owe it to the Citizens' Committee to vote on their maps."

Alluding to the truncation and gerrymandering of the Seventh Ward, she said she was "fascinated to hear how the goal was not to change [ward] boundaries." Alderman Edmund Moran, 6th Ward, and Ald. Rainey voted against map 15. Ald. Moran attempted to get the Committee to recommend maps 7a, 13b and 14 to the Council as well but was defeated.