By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
County commissioners court members are discussing a county redistricting plan.
Over the past month, the court was presented with several redistricting options by the attorney assisting them with the process, Rolando L. Rios of San Antonio.
Rios had earlier presented the court with information, based on the 2020 Census, that showed 11,247 persons residing in County Precinct 1, represented by County Commissioner Pct. 1 Martin Wardlaw; 12,073 persons residing in County Precinct 2, represented by County Commissioner Pct. 2 Juan Carlos Vazquez; 12,429 persons residing in County Precinct 3, represented by County Commissioner Pct. 3 Beau Nettleton; and 11,837 persons residing in County Precinct 4, represented by County Commissioner Pct. 4 Gustavo “Gus” Flores.
Rios has told the court some persons will have to be moved from County Precinct 3 to equalize the populations in the remaining county precincts.
At the start of a redistricting discussion during the court’s Sept. 28 meeting, County Judge Lewis G. Owens made a motion to accept the first of the redistricting options presented by Rios.
Flores gave the second.
Owens’ motion was not approved, with Wardlaw, Vazquez and Nettleton voting against it.
Wardlaw then made a motion for another option, with Nettleton giving the second.
Nettleton asked Rios about population deviations within the precinct populations.
“The difference between the highest population – 12,429 in Precinct 3 – and the lowest – 11,247 in Precinct 1 – that number, divided by the ideal – 11,897 persons per precinct – is 5 percent, and as long as it’s 10 percent or less, it’s constitutional,” Rios answered.
Nettleton asked what other laws applied to redistricting measures.
“There’s two major laws. There’s the ‘one person, one vote’ ruling, the protection clause, representation is based on population, total population, should be equal, and the second one is a federal statute that requires that when you redraw the (precinct) lines, it doesn’t dilute the voting strength of protected racial minorities,” Rios replied.
When Nettleton asked if the plan being forwarded by Wardlaw complied with that, Rios said, “All the plans we talked about comply with those.”
Nettleton then pointed out after the court redraws the four county precinct lines, it must also redraw some of the individual voting precincts.
“What I’d like to do when we get to the voting (precincts) part, we currently have 17 voting precincts in this county, and it’s very difficult to find workers to work 17. I would like to see us redraw that to where we have three voting precincts per commissioner precinct, and that would leave us with a total of 12 voting precincts, and it would make things easier,” Nettleton said.
“The main thing you have to look at is that you can’t have a voting precinct that has more than 5,000 registered voters. As long as that number is below 5,000, then you can do it,” Rios replied.
“So it would be difficult to do it with three (voting precincts), if 5,000 is the magic number,” Nettleton said.
As the discussion continued, Wardlaw asked, “Judge, can we postpone this until the next meeting?”
Wardlaw subsequently withdrew his motion, and Nettleton made a motion to table the discussion, with Vazquez giving the second.
The motion to table passed unanimously.
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