San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Voters get to have input on council’s new maps
Do you know who represents your interests on City Council? That could change in the coming months.
The boundaries of each City Council district are set to change soon based on population shifts seen in the once-a-decade U.S. census, which triggers a process called redistricting. That’s the act of drawing new political maps that may place you in another City Council district.
Those maps, even if the borders only are altered slightly, can have a big impact on city life. The new lines determine which communities vote for which politicians — that in turn affects everything those politicians have a hand in.
In San Antonio, there’s a lot City Council decides. Members have the power to hire a city manager, adopt the city’s annual budget, approve incentives for new developments in a neighborhood and more. Redistricting influences it all.
But there are some federal laws that affect the process.
The 10 City Council districts in San Antonio must be roughly equal in population size. Based on new census data, that means about 143,494 residents in each district. That’s up from 2010, when each district needed to have around 132,672 residents.
New boundaries also can’t dilute the votes of people of color — following the federal Voting Rights Act.
Who creates the maps?
One of the largest controversies around redistricting is who has the control of drawing up the new maps.
At the state level, the responsibility has often rested with partisan state legislatures to create boundaries they will campaign within — leading to possibly gerrymandered districts.
Gerrymandering is an abuse of the redistricting power that happens when mapmakers support a political goal — allowing politicians to choose their voters, rather than voters choosing their representatives.
Some cities, counties and states have created independent bodies and given them mapmak
ing and approval ability to keep the responsibility away from elected officials who have a stake in the new boundaries.
In San Antonio, City Council has the authority to approve new maps, as laid out in the city charter. But this decade, instead of council members working on the boundaries themselves, a citizen committee will handle redistricting.
After the committee suggests a map of new council districts, it will come back to City Council for final approval this summer.
How to chime in
Mayor Ron Nirenberg, in an October memo to City Council, said the committee will submit its final map recommendation with the expectation that council approve it or not — without making changes — as a way to build community trust.
The committee will seek
public feedback now through May on what a new City Council map should look like. You can tell members how you define
your neighborhood and what community you think your vote should count in.
The committee held its
first meeting on Nov. 29. In the coming months, members will meet at a variety of times and locations to allow more people to attend.
Some meetings will be held on Saturdays and others on weekday evenings.
Members saw the first new preliminary City Council map earlier this month.
The goal is that meeting locations recognize areas of the city most impacted by redistricting — like District 8 and District 5, the most and least populous areas of San Antonio, respectively.
The redistricting advisory committee will meet in public at the following dates and times:
10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 29 at the District 5 Senior Center, 2701 S. Presa St. 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 5 at the Pre-K 4 SA North Education Center, 3635 Medical Drive
2 p.m. Monday, Feb. 14, in the Municipal Plaza B Room near City Hall
6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 28, location to be determined
10 a.m. Saturday, March 19, at Roosevelt Park Clubhouse, 331 Roosevelt Ave.
2 p.m. Tuesday, March 29, in the Municipal Plaza B Room near City Hall
6 p.m. Monday, April 4, location to be determined
10 a.m. Saturday, April 23, location to be determined
6 p.m. Monday, May 2, location to be determined
6 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, in the Barrera Room at Ron Darner Park Headquarters, 5800 Enrique Barrera Parkway
2 p.m. Tuesday, May 31 in the Municipal Plaza B Room near City Hall.
To stay up to date on where meetings will be held, visit www.saspeakup .com/#events and type “redistricting” into the search bar on the righthand side of the page.
Learn more about San Antonio redistricting and see who’s on the committee at www.sabexarcount mein.org/Committee/ Redistricting. You can also read the page in Spanish.