Citizens Urged to Join Redistricting Talks

County residents recently gathered to hear and see regarding the growth of White, Hispanic/Latino, Asian and Black/African American populations and how population changes will affect redistricting.

The 2010 Census showed a significant slowing in growth of the majority, white-non Hispanic, population. In combining minorities that have outgrown the majority, Gwinnett County is now, statistically, a minority-majority county.    

Collected every ten years, the census data indicates increases by races and languages from 2000 to 2010 in the following: White from 427,883 to 429,563, Hispanic or Latino from 64,137 to 162,035, Black from 78,224 to 184,122, Asian from 42,360 to 84,763. Gwinnett added 300,000 residents over the past decade. 

Redistricting is important to the local and national political picture. Politically, redistricting plays a crucial part in electing members of Congress, state legislatures, county commissions, city councils and school boards. It is a part of the federal Voting Rights Act.  

Gwinnett County has the largest school system in the state. Yet it does not have a minority on its school board. And, with the county experiencing a vast growth in minority populations, minority representation on the county commission and most city councils has yet to occur.

“Unfortunately we are voting along racial lines. Minority-majority districts are represented exclusively by democrats and majority, white districts, are all represented by republicans,” said Curt Thompson, Georgia State Senator, District 5. “The reason this (redistricting) has become such a political partisan issue is that in spite of 60 years of the civil rights movement the two places that we still tend to voluntarily segregate are church and the voting booth.”     

By law the U.S. Census Bureau must present redistricting data one year after the census has been conducted. State representatives, local community members, or others then use the information to redraw district lines in the county. Those plans are then resubmitted to the Census Bureau.

“We don’t have an active role in redistricting,” said Gerson Vasquez, of the U.S. Census Bureau. “We provide the data. The real catalysts for redistricting are the people that participate in the census.

"Due to Georgia being the seventh fastest growing state in the country, with over eighteen percent increase in its population from 2000, it picked up a fourteenth congressional seat which is very important to the national big picture of government.”

Georgia has the third largest minority, non-white, population of any state. It has the largest legislative black caucus of any state in the nation. Historically, because of the Voting Rights Act, Georgia has created a large block of minority voting districts.

On Friday the Legislative and Congressional Reappointment Office of the Georgia General Assembly released the first set of redistricting maps for the Georgia House of Representatives and the Georgia Senate based on 2010 census data.  

These redistricting maps are not finalized, but they will serve as drafts to begin discussions during a special session of the Georgia Assembly starting Monday.

Provided that the proposed maps are approved, Gwinnett County could have the state’s first majority Hispanic, Spanish-speaking, state house district.

“Often time citizens think that redistricting is something that only the legislators or government can do, but we draw district maps for citizens, communities,” said Fred McBride, the redistricting coordinator with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation. “Who is better to speak for where they live and vote than the people in the community.”

McBride encourages public participation in the redistricting process by attending the special session of the Assembly, reviewing legislative proposed redistricting maps, holding community meetings to discuss redistricting and joining with other organizations that share similar views about redistricting. He said the ACLU will provide education, drawing services in creating maps, and free legal representation to defend community based redistricting conflicts.

“As a lawyer I would encourage citizens to get involved on the front end to get maps drawn right from the beginning as opposed to suing to make them right on the back end,” Thompson said.