4 redistricting maps to go before Shelby Co. Commission
Four maps will go before the Shelby County Commission in the redistricting process, one of which would put two incumbent commissioners in the same district.
Members of the ad hoc redistricting committee narrowed 10 maps down to their top three choices in a meeting Monday night. The maps were voted on by the full commission in committees Wednesday, then will be considered in commission Monday.
On Wednesday, a fourth map (2a1) was added, after commissioners noted it had tied with one of the three in their process of narrowing down maps earlier in the week.
Lines must be redrawn every 10 years after the census. Districts must have roughly proportional population with a deviation of less than 10% and must be compact and contiguous.
The most controversial of the top four maps was 4a3, a map that had been ruled out the previous week and then brought back for reconsideration. That map would put commissioners Brandon Morrison and Michael Whaley, both of whom are up for reelection next year, in the same district.
Darrick Harris, project lead for redistricting, said what he tried to do in 4a3 was bring as much of Cordova together as possible. For the most part, he has tried to respect incumbency to avoid disrupting communities and constituents, he said.
“It places precincts that are in Cordova proper, for lack of a better phrase, together in a compact way,” Harris said.
The 4a3 map also cuts out the southernmost part of Collierville and bifurcates Germantown, pointed out Commissioner David Bradford.
But that map also received support, including from the Rev. Earle Fisher, founder of #Upthevote901 and one of the unelected members of the ad hoc committee.
It had been previously thrown out inappropriately, Fisher said, in a way that pandered to “political anxieties.”
“If you follow the developments in population that have happened across the county, I think map 4a3 is the one that provides the most equitable opportunity for fair representation across the county,” Fisher said. “In part you get Cordova with enough representation on its own to kind of sustain what ultimately is like its own district. If the majority of an area is represented by a certain demographic then it should have that type of weight in terms of the likelihood of the representative that’s elected in that area that’s elected by the demographic of people that’s electing in that area.”
Another of the top three maps, map 3a1, keeps most current districts generally intact but expands district 5 (Whaley’s district) a little further into the Cordova area. It also seeks to bring as many precincts in the Cordova area together as possible, Harris said.
The third map, 1c1, is “almost the same as the current county commission map now with very minor changes,” Harris said.
District 8 on 1c1 goes a bit further north than it does on the current map and district 10 stretches a bit further south, but the others remain largely the same.
Of the 10 maps that were considered, nine were drawn by Harris. The 10th, map 4, was submitted by Bradford and drew criticism from Commissioner Tami Sawyer.
“It’s an insult what map four looks like,” Sawyer said. “I know where this map comes from, the Republican party of Shelby County. … I think that the district four map is partisan and doesn’t represent our best interests.”
Katherine Burgess covers county government and religion. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.