A redistricting dust-up

Recently, Gov. Asa Hutchinson called state Rep. Megan Godfrey of Springdale, a Democrat, to poll her on the income-tax-cut proposal he still ponders for a special legislative session.

In the course of the conversation, Hutchinson told Godfrey that she should be pleased to know that it appeared that the legislative redistricting plan — imminently to be released by the Board of Apportionment that he nominally headed — would turn her heavily Latino district into a majorityLatino one.

Godfrey, coordinator of secondlanguage programs at Fayetteville High School, was elected two terms ago largely on the strength of overwhelming support in the heavily Latino areas of Springdale. She has served that community diligently and effectively, winning bipartisan backing for nurse licensure for children brought to the country illegally — Dreamers, they’re called — who were, in many cases, completing all the educational requirements but being denied the right of licensure and employment.

In the recent session, Godfrey, hardworking and personable and Spanish-fluent, won bipartisan support on another Latino issue. This time it was for a bill permitting school districts so inclined to offer stateapproved bilingual instruction and dual immersion language programs — helping children learn in their first language while being simultaneously steered into their second.

It’s not even a close question to say Godfrey is the best friend of the Latino community holding elective state office in Arkansas today.

Then, at the end of the week before last, the map to which Hutchinson had referred got released. As chairman of the apportionment board, Hutchinson joined Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and Secretary of State John Thurston, fellow members, in ballyhooing the state’s first majority-Latino House district.

An hour or so later, Godfrey put on Twitter that, well, she wasn’t in the district by the redrawing, but separated from her Latino constituency by new lines cutting Springdale oddly in two and putting her residence in a new district meandering from the city across the Benton County line.

The next day, Hutchinson called Godfrey again. It was to say apologetically that he hadn’t had any idea during their previous conversation that she wasn’t going to be in the district.

It goes to show that the governor was somewhat detached from a process that Rutledge and Thurston — more principally their staffs — overtook to protect the interests of right-wing extremist Republican legislators for whom Hutchinson had no affection.

It raised questions about whether those other officers and their staffs, and the Board of Apportionment’s staff, got so determined to create a majority-Latino district that they inadvertently or unthinkingly left Godfrey’s neighborhood out of it.

But others say it’s naïve to think such a sanguine thing, considering that the entire process was all about protecting incumbents — even Democrats to appear fair — and that the conspicuous excision was of course deliberate.

The governor tells me only that his deputy legal counsel informed him of the likelihood of the majority-Latino district and that he assumed Godfrey was in it when he talked to her initially.

The governor also reminded me that I had written critically of designing districts merely for incumbent protection. That’s true. But I also wrote that it would be fairer for an independent commission to draw the districts, and, if considering incumbent interests, consider them equally … you know, whether named Trent Garner or Megan Godfrey.

But this issue may be less a matter of Godfrey’s interest than the Latino neighborhoods’ interest.

As it happens, the affected Latino community has begun to send signals that it is less desirous of making history than of keeping Godfrey as its representative.

There is a 30-day public comment period before the board makes the map final. And there is a bit of stirring.

Isamar Garcia of Springdale, who has served on a kind of kitchen cabinet advising Godfrey, told me that a majority-Latino district, or two, or more, is inevitable, but that, for now, “no one has proved herself more” in service to the community than Godfrey. Garcia said nothing would be gained, but much lost, “by starting from scratch in legislative representation.”

She also complained that the new district separates Latino residents from churches, places of work, places of commerce and schools.

Manny Tejada, also part of Godfrey’s advisory group, told me his community “has never had an advocate like Megan Godfrey.”

Tejada said he had already filed a public comment with the board urging reconsideration. He predicted an outpouring of such comments. Garcia said she soon would be filing such comments and encouraging others to join her.

Might the Board of Apportionment undo its historic first majority-Latino district, but only because the Latino community wanted more to keep its state representative than make history?

That was beginning last week to seem conceivable, but only if the district could be tinkered with absent a domino effect on too many bloodmade deals with Republican incumbents on their districts.

In that case, you could argue that incumbents would be prioritized over Latino voters by the creation of a new district making Latino voters a majority. And there’s kind of an irony for you.