Redistricting moves forward – slowly

Some county commissioners are uneasy with how the county’s redistricting is going, prompting Commissioner Stephen Holmes to call for a defined “road map” of how the process will move forward.

“When are we going to adopt our criteria?” Holmes asked. “When are we going to have maps approved? When are we going to have public hearings?”

County Judge Mark Henry repeated what he told The Daily News — the attorney hired by the county to manage the redistricting process will meet with each commissioner within the next two weeks and should deliver redrawn commissioner precinct maps within 45 days.

The attorney also will provide the county with possible redistricting of the justice of the peace and constable precincts.

Henry said he favors consolidating at least two of the county’s justice of the peace and constable precincts.

The growth in county population as well as a shift in population in the 2010 Census guarantee some significant changes to the commissioners’ precincts and might result in the consolidation of two justice of the peace/constable precincts.

With the county’s population at 291,309, the optimum population in each of the county’s four commissioner precincts would be about 72,828.

To meet requirements of the federal Voting Rights Act, at least one of the county’s commissioner precincts must be a minority-majority population. That means Holmes’ Precinct 3 will be the first priority of the redistricting process.

“It does concern me we haven’t moved and we aren’t further along in the process than we are at this point,” Holmes said.

Part of the process will include four public hearings, one in each commisioner’s precinct, Henry said. From there, the adopted maps will be sent to the U.S. Department of Justice for approval.

The real battle might be about almost certain significant changes to Precinct 1. Precinct 4 Commissioner Ken Clark suggested he will have to give up parts of his precinct to Precinct 1 to help balance the population.

Such a move would make the precinct more favorable for a Republican to win.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Pat Doyle, often a needle in Clark’s side, joked of concerns that Clark was pulling the strings on the redistricting process.

“If we put Ken as the point man, I’ll be living in League City or Friends-wood,” Doyle, a Texas City resident, said.

Clark’s only response?

“The numbers are the numbers,” he said.

The county isn’t the only governmental body going through the redistricting process. The city of Galveston, Galveston school district and College of the Mainland also are in the process of redrawing precinct or district boundaries.