State Agencies & Govt'l Affairs- House

I guess you could say. Thank you madam Clark chair saves a quorum the meeting is called to order. This is our initial meeting for probably what will be a series of meetings in regards to read disturbing for the congressional districts we have a lot of work ahead of us. Obviously it probably in the future meetings hopefully the Senate the state agencies will be able to join us because we need to be having joint meeting Senator Rapert and I've used it and he was unable to be here today's allows we decided that we needed to get started. And get this thing going so obviously when he had called this meeting but in the future I'm sure they'll be they will be joining this for these meetings. A couple weeks ago myself and representative speaks of along with the to to Counselors sitting at the table we attended a redistricting seminar do what. We attended a registrant seminar in Salt Lake City. And the lady packed a lot of stuff into that two day conference. But it was very enlightening we learned a lot and I appreciate the. The two bill our members Matthew in the shale and for them being here today they kind of brief us on the duties the dollars and the things that we need to be doing as we move forward to get to D. ease of redistricting taking care of you and also we all these meetings will be open to the public for any public comment that they may have in regards to the task that we've been assigned to to take care of so with that said the. I'm gonna lead or two experts at the table to introduced himself and identify themselves and then we'll get started with the meeting. You are recognized interventions that. Good morning my name's Michelle Davenport I'm a senior legislative attorney with the pure of Legislative Research. Good morning Matthew Miller with legislative research. You're recognized in if you would just I would appreciate it and and and I know we've talked briefly just a yes the best way to start the meeting is just kind of what our take away or your take away and I'll inject anything that I feel necessary and along the way but or take away from how we need to move forward what we need to do and up for this committee to have a understanding of what what lays ahead for so I think that be a good way to start election you take away from that conferences Salt Lake City and the so who wants to go first. If it's alright with you representative Tosh I can start with just a brief overview of the redistricting process in general and this includes the takeaways that we brought back from the redistricting conference and that may open up opportunities for any of the members to access questions about any of the specific issues and then we can always go into a little bit more death if you have any questions about any of the specifics okay that's great I deal you're recognized and and yet thank you for calling your might just a little bit closer counselor and you're recognized to present that over the thank you. The first question that always happens to come up is what is the role of the General Assembly when we're talking about redistricting and as representative Tosh said at the conference we there are a lot of different states that handle things very differently here in Arkansas Arkansas code annotated seventy one oh one establishes that the general assembly's primary role in redistricting is to establish the four congressional districts of the state of Arkansas. Seventy one oh one states that were divided into four congressional districts and. The US census data is used to determine the population of Arkansas and how it's distributed across the state. When the national numbers came out from the United States they apportioned the number of seats in Congress and the house of representatives based on population Arkansas stayed the same at four so we're not faced with the problem other states are of having to change the number of actual congressional representatives we have we have the same we have four seats which is what we have currently. Talking about our current situation this is a map that shows. The distribution of those four congressional seats here in the state of Arkansas. And this is important because this is what we call the graphic view so sometimes as we go through this when you talk about the maps this is the graphic view however if you walk with me through the next few slides or what it actually looks like in code so we talked about the mat but this is what actually gets adopted into the Arkansas Code when you're talking about did delineation of a congressional district and these can look a little bit different as you'll see in you've got a copy of the power point as you can see the first congressional district currently has both whole counties and some counties that are split by precincts. If you look at second congressional district it's currently established with nothing but whole County. So the reason this is important is this is actually what the bill drafts will look right as you're preparing your maps we will be able to provide this graphical view for you but that's not actually what gets adopted into the Arkansas Code so this is what we're going to talk to you know if you're asking as if you want a map this is what you're going to get but you're also going to get in addition the actual bill format that shows exactly what precincts and counties or if you're going with just counties this is what it's going to look like so we thought that might be helpful coming into the process for you to have an example of what those are going to look like as you can see the third congressional district also currently has a split between whole counties and partial precincts counties and then this is the fourth congressional district. So one of the big take aways from the conference and just in general as you move towards the redistricting process is just know what the legal issues are that surround this process. The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been interpreted by the United States Supreme Court to require the state to draw legislative districts so that each district is about the same size as the others. It sometimes you'll see a lot of the publications called you know one person one vote Dr. The leading issue for this one person one vote rule was established in Westbury B. Sanders and it basically the courts came in said what do they mean by that they mean as nearly is practicable. That one man's vote in congressional election B. worth as much as and others again it's a legal issue and the legal question because those are all questions of fact what is practicable what is as close as possible that's where you. End up into the legal questions so why and how do you navigate that process and that's where you come to some of these other things and you'll hear term called deviation so a perfect one person one vote means that there is an exact number of people in all four congressional districts. What we know that that statistically even difficult because sometimes the population doesn't divide by four so how do you go about determining what the differences are and that's what's called the deviation and you'll hear a lot of that if you're reading articles about redistricting a lot of focus is put on deviation in the deviation rate. That deviation is really a population variance so the variance between all four districts is one of the areas that you can have a legal challenge. Traditionally keeping the variance below one percent is a general standard that some states use but that is not considered a quote safe harbor that was one of the terms that was used at the redistricting conference and the census bureau notes that the goal was for the district to be as equal in population to all of the districts as possible so you can't say that has to be within one percent has to be within each any set percentage it's really still going to be a fact based analysis but that is one of the standards that has been used by certain states is this one percent role. If you're looking into redistricting you're going to hear the term gerrymander in you're going to hear it used in a lot of different contexts gerrymanders actually a term of art that used to describe a plan or a district intentionally drawn to give one group or one party advantage over another. So that's the very broad definition and it gets used in a lot of different contexts in there's been numerous cases. The talk about this particular term both in the group setting or the party setting one of these is the most recent is actually two thousand and nineteen case a rich overseas com Clause. That the Supreme Court has concluded that gerrymandering based on partisan. Groups is non judicial in the federal courts so they stated very clearly that if the really the best is what the court said we conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties with no plausible granted authority in the G. constitution and no legal standards to limit and direct their decision. So judicial review of jurors a person gerrymandering does not meet those basic requirements no there's another type of. Cases that come through that involves jury meaning that may be judicial or be able to be heard in the federal court system and that is if they violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or the voting rights act of nineteen sixty five. So when you're talking about redistricting in general in your face that these legal issues what are states looking at to make those determinations and how they should navigate these process there are certain traditional redistricting principles that have been used to determine how you're going to address those population variances that deviation between the four so what we want to walk through briefly is just what those are and what they mean and if you think about the fact that you're looking at a map it kinda helps I know that helps me visualize so compactness. Having the minimum distance between all the parts of a constituency a circle a square hexagon those are typically the more compact districts some districts can be very linear yeah that's a question of whether you reach those goals a continuity all parts of the district being connected at some point with the rest of the district preservation of counties or other political subdivisions refers to not crossing county city town boundaries when drawing districts preservation of communities of interest geographical areas such as neighborhoods of the city regions of a state where residents have common political interests that do not necessarily coincide with the boundaries of the political subdivisions such as a city or county preservation of core and prior of course of prior districts this refers to maintaining districts as previously drawn to the extent possible and that's why you've all given your addresses as incumbents to the mapping system to make sure those are identified as well. That comes into play with the next one of winning pairing incumbents this refers to awarding districts that would create contests between incumbents. Then we have the compliance with the equal protection clause and this is that US from courts how the district should not be defined exclusively by race although it's permissible to take race into account Paul drawing district boundaries there exceptions for drawing or adjusting a district based on racial considerations in order to avoid a violation of the voting rights act and in compliance with the voting rights act in addition to equal population as the primary goal the fourteenth amendment's prohibition against intention discrimination the voting rights act prohibits any practice or procedure that has a discriminatory effect on racial or language minorities so those are the general principles to be thinking through when you're putting together what you want the each of the four congressional districts to look what. One of the other issues that was brought up at the conference is the confidentiality that you're typically accustomed to in the drafting and research process may not be the same and may not be available in a court challenge comments or written documents that you provide to staff your colleagues or other state officials may be discoverable in the event of legal challenge this could include emails text messages conversations with staff or other information related to the mapping process however as we've just talked about absent any litigation in the matter bureau staff will continue to keep your drafts of the legislation confidential and not be shared with out your approval. So that's a very broad overview so this isn't general information also about the apportionment and redistricting of the actual seats for the house of representatives and the Senate here in Arkansas the board of apportionment is the responsible party for redistricting the seats for the Arkansas house and Senate article eight of the Arkansas constitution creates the board of apportionment gives them their duties and sets out the redistricting process and that board is technically made up of the governor the secretary of state and the Attorney General. The board of apportionment is going to be holding public meetings and has already started those public meetings and regarding their proposed plans and the way they want their maps to look for adoption and I've got the address for the board there they have a current list of events that you can go to to see when all of their board of apportionment meetings are and then they also publish minutes afterwards of each of their meeting so that can be very helpful and location if you're trying to find that are redirecting statements to that information. M. and those meetings are being held across the state so they're in different locations so just be aware of that it's all under their events calendar. So when does the hard work start officially the US census is releasing the data and what we're going to call the user friendly format on September thirtieth twenty twenty one and that means that this is when it's going to be available for the general public to be able to access it on the US census bureau website with all of the search tools and things that we think of that would make data very usable. Here's what makes it a little bit unusual the raw census data is actually going to be available to our software vendor earlier than that now it's going to be available August twelfth twenty twenty one however. That's the raw data it has none of the ability to do the searches to be able to easily compile that information we do have a software vendor city gate that is providing us with the mapping software they're going to be able to take that raw data and upload it and then do a very important process of actually checking the data and making sure that everything's up loading correctly and so it should be able to be to us in a usable format in early September so that we will have the current data ready to go in the software and checked by early September. Once we get that usable data. Members of the General Assembly are able to meet with ms Lori by one of our Research Division myself or Matthew to request a map be drawn of the recommendations for the boundaries of the congressional districts the really wonderful thing about the software is once that map is drawn it actually helps generate that information for me to put in the bill format so really our first step is going with that graphical view that map version so that it can be your representation of what you believe those four congressional districts should look what once you have approved that math if it's working with Laurie then it's going to be transmitted to me and I'll get it to you and that bill format and get drafted in the manner that we talked about earlier you'll have both the map and the actual bill draft that looks like our our typical bill. So you're very last slide has all of the important contact contact information to reach out to either Laurie myself for Matthew and if you're ready to have a map drawn and again we will be sure and let everyone know as soon as we have the new information fully integrated into the software we will add definitely let the chair's know when that is so that you can be as where as well. Thank you thank you Gelser. Any further discussion from Matthew or for either what you all have anything else to add just a couple questions and then the ship committee members have any questions once we receive the data the census data I know we have software we've already contracted to. With a software company if if if I believe that's correct and once the we get that we expect that sometime of the around the middle of August but H. my understanding is will take the I. T. people probably a couple weeks to be able to get us up and running and be able to plug that that a and actually set the system up so. You know we could be look in before that information is available somewhere around September the first two maybe even up to September the fifteenth the is that a pretty good. The summarize that shall I want correctly so yes Sir will just when we'll get it on the twelfth but there's a process that will have to go through all these the major download you just have to make sure that the download comes through perfectly just like any software that you do and so there's there's processes to go through we're going to undertake all of those but when we tell you that it's ready it will be ready to vendor will told us that checked at all we're ready to go. Okay thank you for that nature also so committee members and no anyone. anyone can submit a proposal from this committee are from the any representative we you know anyone from the public and for this committee to review of would you discuss that for just a moment how that would take place I mean they submit it I guess bring it before this committee to the what what would be the process. That will actually be at the discretion of the chair we will treat every map request just like the bill request so we're not going to entertain and map requests from the general public unless it's coming through a member of the General Assembly so if it comes their member of the General Assembly that's the only way we're going to be drafting a public and document so it we would treat it just like the standard bill drafting process but it'll be up to the chair on how you would like those introduced or discussed before committee and we'll leave that in your hands okay thank you for the answer. Yes I thank for now to me that's all the questions I have sure on have some other issues we move forward let's turn to the committee and Representative the representative paid. Thank you Mr you did a great job answered all the questions I had except for one and it's probably a very simple one but you know currently we have some counties that are divided and I see in the language of the legislation how you how you identify that by voting district precinct so when can those voting districts and precincts changing the words would that be post no words if if we. If we set it up and we name voting districts in the legislation I'm and then the council may change of voting districts so how does that work we give it the same exact situation as we would be referring to another law we say it's going to be that voting district of those counties as they existed on January one twenty twenty one or as it says so that you know the exact boundaries of what that is at that point so if there's redistricting that happens at those local levels after that your congressional districts are still already established okay thank you thank you Mr. Representative back you're recognized thank you Mr chair of just the more curiosity I in two thousand eleven what was the you know you mentioned that we should try to keep this within one percent what was the actual division in two thousand eleven do you know. Representative back I don't have the exact numbers I know it was very low it was within hundreds between the districts between because counties were split you can really drive the deviation down you know by splitting the counties that I'm not saying that's an advertisement either for or against it's just that because it was done it really got a deviation down very very low. Thank you. Representative Jane you're recognized for a question Mr chairman when you also we're gonna have a roll numbers. Is that we have we will we have statewide totals will roll numbers would be broke down roll numbers on congressional district. We not have a for counties yet are we not having for per precincts yet what they can't explain we say roll numbers what we'll have it all everything is from a census mapping software it goes down the individual blocks we run numbers you have that so we'll have every block on August twelfth it's not the August twelfth that is identical to the September thirtieth data it's just they're not quite done with it from a showing it to the public standpoint yet but we're our software vendors they can what is not quite done within me it's not and they don't have it in this searchable format on that when it comes out on September thirtieth we get on DVDs and flash drives you know it's something that's very accessible and you can go in and search and use on the twelfth it's more kind of the behind the scenes data as opposed to the search features installed are in our understanding is it is just like a massive excel spreadsheet okay information that the software can process and allow the search capabilities but that none of that I'm going to say there's something like seventy six different fields just for one criteria and so it's so large that most systems can't run it in its raw format that all the data is exactly the same okay thank you thank you Mr chairman. Representative Ladyman you're recognized thank you Mr chair of just this kind of the same thing that represent Payton ask but I just I wouldn't your understood your answer so as one clarify something so. I think what you said was that and and this was a concern of mine the counties may take a lot longer for the JP races and you get the cities in their districts so I think what you said was that we don't have to wait on them that doesn't affect what we're doing at all. No Sir we would use the precinct as they exist right now before they have been re district and changed or if there's any variation of those lines that occurs actually after our dominant our domino's actually the first domino in the process so the congressional districts get set and then everything else kind of happens afterwards and the reason we do that and I pull this back up is that it's the following voting districts of this council as they existed on January one twenty eleven so it would be as those voting districts existed on January one twenty twenty one. And so that way they're preserve you know exactly who's there but they can make any changes they need to afterwards. Thank you. Representative Cozart you're recognized thank you Mr this kind of a question for the chair so Mister chair when this all is ready to take place and we want to start talking to them about drawing maps what we we do need to come to you to get that approval correct. It's my understanding from the seminar I thought it'd be a good idea that we brought it back to the chair so we know exactly what we're going to be putting on the agenda and move forward with it from there would you agree with that casters would certainly defer to you representative talks on the procedural aspect of it we're just happy to be of assistance however you all like to do it hello my duty that way we can kind of keep up with what you know what's going to be on the agenda and who's going to be testifying who's bringing it forward instead of just having it being submitted to different places so I would suggest with your approval that yes the chair of. We kept abreast of that so we know what to what to do also Mister chair would be better that if there are our committee is in four groups and four congressional districts are five and each one would be better that those five and that congressional district try to work together to draw that map. Would you agree with that your question I'm I have a little trouble hearing you represent I was saying we have four congressional districts represented in this committee we each have five members in each district would it be better that those five in the fourth district third District first district and second district try to work together to draw that map so that we're not pulling against each other okay that's a great question but I was I think that's something I need to think about because you know these up as we look at the numbers for each one of these congressional districts you know it the it I just think all of those have an input into it for all four congressional districts as a community as a whole might be better served than trying to Have a five three generational district to review those and drawn but let me give me let me give that some thought and talked to the the attorneys about it but it is a good suggestion but I want to thank about it thank you Mr. Representative back you're recognized thank you Mr chair of. I'm I'm curious you said that with the first domino fall and then that will happen in the counties would would. You know what they did. A. What the question is why would you do that seems like you're taking like the largest chunk from the top and then as you go down to the counties the counties could really. Dice this thing up and we've made it based upon prior to their changes which would create a lot of voter confusing confusion at the at yeah I to precinct level to me seems like you did just the opposite right. Really the question is is the way Arkansas is structured is that the only role the General Assembly has is in doing these congressional districts it really is up to the board of apportionment on how they're going to use those congressional districts that are set by us so at this point as the members of the General Assembly you would be the one saying Hey these are four congressional districts it's up to the board of apportionment how they choose to use those four congressional districts for any precincts that are divided if they're so occurred. In this situation. The other states handle that print manner so just a quick follow up with. So would the board of apportionment go all the way down to the county level then as far as two peas in prison cell okay so that brings me to my next question is are they gonna do their bidding first before the county so there's I don't know if there's a separate I know that the board of apportionment handles the house and Senate and that's it so at that point is that the counties on how they are going to handle each of their JV races and each of their county based on statute I believe there are different ways that you don't even within cities on we in that process occurs and if it occurs on every ten years or if it's just a person upon need. Okay thank you very much. Say no further questions from committee members you know I remember at the conference counselors that you obviously all this be data driven and and when we want to get each congressional district as close as we can to the numbers obviously we all understand this not going to be exact that's impossible as even in our legislative districts that's impossible to get exact what we're trying to get that percentage as close as possible and is people are submitting these proposals and something I want each committee member to to maybe think about is that the. You know I thought you know a if we can draw all these congressional districts without splitting counties and I know that may increase a difference in the numbers more so than that it would if we if we split counties I just going to see if any of the committee members had any thoughts in regards to what would how they feel about that I made personally myself I like she able to if you're a county and and instead of having that county split between two congressional districts is just to be able to avoid that if at all possible and maybe it's maybe we can I don't know but I sure thank is something that we need to look at. Your thoughts. I think that I mean that's certainly a policy decision for the General Assembly last time was the first time we had split counties but he also made the policy decision clearly if you don't split them there's only so much deviation there can be I mean you're working with absolutes in that the counties have a set number population but that analysis is more about it's factually driven you know if if you didn't split counties and that's part of the rationale you submit in favor of why the deviation is the way it is that that was the criteria you were using so it's certainly a policy decision for the General Assembly them the main thing we want you all to know is if you if that's something you want to pursue we can do it we can use the software to reach that goal. Thank you for that ensure appreciate that that was will said committee members keep that thought in mind that is willing to throw it out there for to get an answer from the attorneys and give you something to think about as we move forward with these proposals whether we split counties are trying to keep full hello again in each congressional districts so got a couple more questions just popped up representative Deffenbaugh you're recognized for a question. Thank you Mr I'm just this is out of curiosity I. I noticed in Searcy county has just a little bitty north west. Warner that's in the third district. Who is that. Isn't that much population in that little corners that would cause that. The to reach a threshold of one percent or. That's interesting that that just a little bitty pieces there is is in third district administers I don't have the population numbers in front of me and that would have just been a decision made by the General Assembly in two thousand and eleven as to what that distribution is going to look like so I don't have the exact population to know. What that number was that pushed the deviation one way or the other but it would have been based at that precinct level yeah. Okay thank you appreciate yeah. Representative Ladyman you're recognized thank you Mr so that you said the last census was the first time counties were split is that correct in Arkansas yes Sir the the follow up for that but of. Thank you so that was done in the numbers and I've looked at the numbers from the previous senses and I think the highest one was point zero four something deviation yes service very well so we've now proven that we can get down. Two point zero something and but I've also looked at the maps based on the the old census data in there there's some software out there that you got on the internet get for any state look at it and so I kind of play around with it you can get under one percent in one map that I look at and you only split one county. But we were up around one percent so my question is since we've shown ten years ago that we can get that low. And then we go up to one percent the you know what's the possibility of legal action or lawsuits to say Hey you know you're not low enough you for your shown is that you can do that I mean I'm all for supporting the county's but with the potential for lawsuits they're saying we're not really doing you know the the deviation is not low enough as representative Tosh heard at that conference this is an area that's ripe for litigation under many different areas so it's it's hard to say ever that you're that nothing could arise with anything that you do as Michelle mentioned presentation the criteria you're using are important so you know if you're going into with the criteria that we don't want to split counties then clearly you know you can only assemble the seventy five counties in a certain way to reach a certain amount of deviation that was a court going to. I don't know what a court would necessarily do with that but to the extent that's the criteria you're using that's kind of your deviation range that you're working with and then it would be a matter of whether the court felt like that was an important enough and justifiable criteria to reach that outcome whatever the deviation maybe okay thank you. Thank you Rep thank you represent that question thank you enough for that address again insurer and you're exactly right that was That was a very room for now quite often that state coffers and I appreciate you bringing that up any further questions from committee representative Whitaker your. Recognized for a question thank you Mr so Matthew and be fair to say on that subject there is no magic number with you you go after good solid policy reasons for doing something. And the opposite of safe harbor is yes there's you know first of all say farmer. Being in Adam below one percent doesn't immunize you from any suit but you also shouldn't make those numbers your only goal is is that a correct assessment of it it's it's a very detailed factual analysis in those challenges on how you got there and what you actually did you miss shall mention the of the voting rights act you know all those kinds of things all factor in and they have they can we different ways in different maps thank you. Any further questions from committee members. J. none and and I'll I'll be is to read to you Michelle are busy we I'm not personally thank you was representative Cozart as to questions about I've been studying about a little bit about dividing us up I really think what we need to do and you got me in this direction I really think we need to work as a community as a whole I'd rather not. We actually start separating the committee's per different congressional districts I think it needs to be input from ever committee member here along with the our colleagues on the Senate in the in state agencies as they join us for future meetings but You know if somebody feels differently about that but that's just my feelings at this time because of the things that you you've already brought up today if you know concerning litigation out thank you if that's going to occur which you probably will we need to be we need to have ever member on this committee putting their input endeavor congressional district and not separating those issues so of you can kind of tell that's the reaction on laning I appreciate the question representative Cozart but are they would do it as a team and whatever happens happens but will lace work it out through that with each one of us is input so. Shall have anything else that. Committee members will probably try to schedule another meeting of. Here are probably the we're looking at maybe the here in a couple weeks I'll have to give Senator Rapert is CP's available at that time because we really need them involved as well. News of already stated no stated again I just want at least get the House members going today if you do have a proposal or anyone in the public as a proposal you need to contact the. Maddie and give it to her and she'll make sure I'm made aware of it you will make sure that our bill our friends that they're aware of it and that's how we'll move forward so saying no further hold on a minute. Representative ridge road if I lose you did you have a question. Okay I think that's one Senator Rapert had scheduled But I think that agenda he had a lot of items on that agenda are other items on that agenda let me get with him of committee just told me she thinks is he wanting to reschedule that. Or not sure I need to visit with him so I'll find out and I'll get word out to you but appreciate you pointing that out. Hello. Who. That's denied you need to be years so It was read aloud in court stuff today so saying no further questions from committee members no further discussion from our state panel thank you all so much for helping us out here today this meeting is adjourned.