Evanston City Council’s Rules Committee voted 7-2 on Monday to adopt a redistricting map to be introduced to the full council next week, ending months of map proposals and political wrangling.
Although the map still must be adopted by City Council, the Rules Committee is composed of all nine aldermen on the council — meaning the same group of people will vote on the final approval.
The adopted map — which also was the most recent proposal — was submitted by Ald. Lionel Jean-Baptiste (2nd). Jean-Baptiste said the map addressed the two issues that have dominated the public discussion about redistricting — maintaining two black majority wards and not splitting on-campus Northwestern students among three wards. The map retains students in only two wards.
Ald. Steven Bernstein (4th), who helped formulate the plan, said though it was likely to anger some groups, it was the proposal that could pass with the fewest changes to current ward boundaries.
“Someone is going to be hurt or offended,” Bernstein said. “That’s the nature of this business. Is it political? Absolutely. If it wasn’t political we probably would have saved a lot of time.”
Evanston officials are required to redraw the boundaries of the city’s nine wards before August, in anticipation of municipal elections in spring 2005. U.S. Census information from 2000 shows population imbalances among the wards.
To reshape the city’s wards, proposed maps must take into account the traditional black majorities in the Second and Fifth wards, which are protected under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
But student representation was also a concern. Associated Student Government proposed its own map when ASG representatives discovered that the proposal by Ald. Arthur Newman (1st) would split the on-campus student vote among three wards — the First, Second and Seventh. NU is currently divided between the First and Seventh wards.
Bernstein and Jean-Baptiste’s map shuffles much of the on-campus student vote into the highly reconfigured Seventh Ward, but some on-campus students will remain in the First Ward.
Ald. Elizabeth Tisdahl (7th) said she was not happy with the changes to her ward boundaries. But she said after talking to constituents, she decided it was worth sacrificing her desires in order to get a majority vote on the committee.
Tisdahl said the proposal “is the only map that can get five votes on the council and can get two majority-minority (black) wards.”
She said the new influx of students would be welcome in her ward and that if students wish to run for alderman, they should do so.
“I welcome any student to this job,” Tisdahl said. “It is an educational experience.”
Monday’s map selection also helped Newman achieve his goal of keeping single-family homes in the First Ward. Earlier he said he was concerned with the possibility of a ward that would consist of only students and Evanston’s downtown.
Most of the other wards remain largely unaltered in the adopted map, meeting Bernstein and Jean-Baptiste’s goals of adhering as close as possible to traditional ward boundaries.
Ald. Ann Rainey (8th), however, took issue with the map because it was based on total population. Until the last Rules Committee meeting Oct. 20, most of the proposed maps were drawn considering voting-age population.
At that meeting Jean-Baptiste proposed that more maps be submitted using the total-population method. Unlike using voting-age population, total-population maps are drawn using all residents of a ward — including those who cannot vote.
Jean-Baptiste said there was no binding legal requirement to use the voting-age rationale. George Mitchell, president of the Evanston chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, proposed a map based on total population earlier on. He said this method would disrupt ward boundaries the least.
Although Herbert Hill, one of city’s attorneys, has strongly suggested using the voting-age basis for drawing maps, the committee still chose a map drawn using total population.
Rainey said drawing a map based on total population would take away 483 voters from her ward because much of her revised ward’s population would be minors who do not vote. She said Jean-Baptiste’s map “victimized” her and her ward.
“Take whatever you want, but leave me with a respectable number of voters,” Rainey said. “Go back to the drawing board. It’s not right. It’s wrong.”
Rainey and Ald. Edmund Moran (6th) were the two members of the committee who voted against adopting the map.
Though Moran did not have any specific complaints about the adopted map, he said he disagreed that students are not a protected class. He said though students are not protected under the Voting Rights Act, they are protected under the 14th Amendment.
“Whether they pay taxes or don’t pay taxes is completely invalid and illegal,” Moran said. “It reminds me of when I was in college in the ’60s, when they told us we shouldn’t trust anyone over 30.”
“I’m beginning to think they were right,” he said.
Moran asked the committee to consider the maps proposed by ASG, but a strong majority of the committee’s members voted down his proposal.
The adopted map will be up for introduction at the the council meeting Nov. 10. The map ultimately could be approved by the council at its meeting Nov. 24.
ASG leaders disappointed — but not entirely surprised — to see their 2 map proposals fail to gain council approval.
