Inside the memory of desktop computers inside legislative offices, the governor’s office and state Republican headquarters, Republicans are ready to spring their proposed congressional and legislative maps.
Yep, redistricting time is here!
All last year, Republicans from former Secretary of State Todd Rokita, to Gov. Mitch Daniels, to Senate President Pro Tem David Long all talked a good game of wanting a fair redistricting process.
The governor wanted a redistricting plan that respected communities of interests and that weren’t blatantly political. Sen. Long said his caucus would protect minority voting rights and adhere to the Federal Voting Rights Act.
But it was all talk and malarkey.
The first signs Republicans were planning a closed, politically driven, perhaps vindictive redistricting effort came when for weeks after 2010 Census data was delivered to state leaders Feb. 9, Republicans refused to implement plans for public access to the data and software so public congressional and legislative maps could be created.
Last Thursday, 43 days after Census data arrived, House and Senate leaders unveiled public computers at three Indiana University campuses, including IUPUI’s Library, where ordinary folks could create redistricting plans.
IUPUI’s site was hastily set-up with superficial training given to IUPUI staff. Plus confusion over whether the public would have to pay an access fee to use the computer. (A fee since rescinded).
Ominously, no redistricting hearings in the state’s largest city, home of its largest minority communities, have been scheduled.
It makes one believe Republicans hope the public ignores the redistricting process, while their maps are fine tuned in secret.
From an African-American community perspective, our community and other communities of color in Indianapolis/Marion County were why the population here grew in the last decade.
The gains by Indy’s communities of color nearly equal an entire state Senate and two state House seats.
Meanwhile, the decline in the white non-Hispanic population of the city/county is equivalent of two-thirds of a Senate seat and nearly an entire House seat.
Just on a strict numerical basis, Indianapolis’ minority communities have earned five state House and two and a half state Senate seats – gains over what exists today.
Any Republican-inspired redistricting plan that doesn’t increase the number of seats where minorities could reasonably elect representatives of their choice will, by definition, be a biased, bigoted plan that clearly violates the Voting Rights Act.
Meanwhile, given the radical mindset of some Indiana Republican leaders, I fear GOP mapmakers will try to carve the city/county into four or five congressional districts.
But, the spread and diversity of the city’s Black and brown (and to a lesser degree Asian) communities would make such an effort, a blatant attempt to eviscerate minority opportunity to elect representatives of their choice.
It would be a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act, and would declare to Indianapolis’ minority communities that the Republican Party is hostile to these growing communities interests.
What I’m hearing in the streets
Usually Indianapolis’ leadership brags about the smallest milestone for the city. So, it’s strange that unlike other cities, Indianapolis’ leadership has been silent over Indianapolis’ 2010 Census results. The city’s record 903,393 population is one of the few major cities in the Midwest and Northeast that grew in population.
Last week, Indianapolis officially became the 11th largest city; in part because of the collapse of 25 percent of Detroit’s population; the previous city in 11th place.
But, no pronouncements from the mayor’s office, or the Chamber of Commerce, or the city’s business elite.
Why?
Indy is also the 13th largest African-American community; up from 16th, our ranking since the 1980 Census. Another piece of positive news ignored by city leaders.
Interviewing Mayor Greg Ballard Jan. 27 on our radio program, I asked whether the city’s job announcements could withstand the media scrutiny the state endured from WTHR/Channel 13’s investigative pit-bull Bob Segall.
The mayor laughed and said “That’s funny. Like we’re not idiots here. You don’t think we’re not checking that right now? We already are. We’re checking that right now.”
Obviously, the mayor’s checkers didn’t do such a great job as last Thursday WRTV/Channel 6’s Watchdog Kara Kenney raised serious questions about Ballard’s job creation efforts, examining documents that less than a quarter of the job commitments are enforceable commitments.
Kenney talked with legendary IU economics professor Morton Marcus, who said just 30 percent of the jobs governments brag they’re creating actually materialize.
When the mayor’s minions refused to let Ballard talk with Kenney, she caught up with him in the downtown Marriott’s lobby. The mayor promptly blew Kenney off, dismissing her legitimate questions with the bizarre statement that his administration was just “following the paradigm” of past job development efforts.
In this eccentric confrontation, Ballard was nervous and disrespectful, uttering the word “paradigm” seven times while squirming and fidgeting to avoid Kenney’s questions.
It reminded me of those classic “60 Minutes” stories where when folks interviewed squirmed under Mike Wallace’s questioning.
It’s not the first time the mayor’s stiff-armed mainstream Indy media. He always does it with Black media.
Three Saturdays ago, Ballard belittled a caller to WTLC-AM (1310’s) “Harambee” program. The first time any Indianapolis mayor disrespected a listener to any of the city’s Black stations.
In January, Ballard clearly said his people were checking to make sure his jobs development efforts could withstand media scrutiny. Channel 6’s Kenney has shown that the mayor’s words were, being charitable, a paradigm of misstatements.
Meanwhile, the mayor’s minions botched the release of Ballard’s task force’s report on ways to improve minority recruitment, hiring and promotion in the police and fire departments. A report mentioned in Mayor Ballard’s Feb. 24 State of the City speech.
After promising to do so, the mayor’s army of PR folks refused to release the report. But last week, they leaked the report to the Star, which irritated committee co-chair Joe Slash, who distributed the report to community leaders.
The report arrived too late to be published in last week’s Recorder, so I published it on WTLC-AM’s web site www.praiseindy.com. And I placed it on my Facebook page and on Twitter.
The Star published the report in last Saturday’s newspaper; the day with the lowest readership.
A paradigm of botched PR from the Ballard administration amid signs of lack of concerns over the entire issue.
See ‘ya next week!
You can e-mail comments to Amos Brown III at acbrown@aol.com.
