Let's Talk About a 15-Member Map!
Email School Board members to request the demographer discuss a 15-member map
On Thursday, February 10th, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) in cooperation with Louisiana Progress and the Southern Poverty Law Center sent a letter to the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board calling on board members to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in redistricting the School Board. In the letter, the LDF cautions that “The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board Map will likely violate Section 2 if less than half of the districts are majority-Black.” (Ideally, the majority-Black districts should also outnumber majority-white districts, but let’s address that aspect another day.) To support this stipulation for an increase in the number of majority-Black districts, the LDF provided illustrative maps with 9-, 11-, and 15-member districts, and for each map at least half of the districts are majority-Black. The 9-district map has five majority-Black districts. The 11-district map has six majority-Black districts. The 15-member map has eight majority-Black districts.
According to the LDF, every one of these maps satisfies Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. However, only maps with 9 and 11 single-member districts are scheduled for public discussion. The 9 single-member district map was provided as a baseline. The 11 single-member district map was provided at the request of school board member Evelyn Ware-Jackson. But so far, no school board member is willing to simply request that Mike Hefner, the demographer, create a map with 15 single-member districts.
If a map with 15 single-member districts is to be discussed during a Public Forum, a school board member must ask Hefner to draw up a map with 15 single-member districts.
Please know that asking Hefner to create such a map does not obligate any school board member to support it during the final vote. It simply allows for public discussion of the merits of such a map.
Such a discussion is vitally important. It will provide an opportunity to raise awareness about the significance of the ratio between constituents and elected officials, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in the Citizens United case. That court decision allows unlimited funds to be spent in elections, and money from pro-charter school business interests and out-of-state billionaires has since flooded into our school board races. Increasing the number of single-member districts to reduce the constituent to elected official ratio will not eliminate but it will mitigate the influence of campaign contributions in our elections. School board elections will once again be competitive, an essential component to the democratic process. Smaller districts have the additional benefit of allowing elected officials to better serve their constituents. School board members can be more responsive to stakeholders. They won’t have to appease the billionaires.
Historically, the number of single-member districts in local jurisdictions was increased in response to population growth in order to maintain a reasonable ratio between elected officials and constituents. But that practice was abandoned in the decades after the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Financial interests have capitalized on that oversight especially since the Citizens United decision. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is inadequate in this new landscape. It may protect our community from maps which dilute the voting strength of African Americans, but it cannot protect us from the insidious effects of the Citizens United decision.
We need discussion of a 15 single-member district map on the public record. Please take a moment to email the EBR School Board members to ask that at least one of them formally requests that Mike Hefner, the demographer, create a map with 15 single-member districts for the purpose of evaluating its merits during a public forum and board workshop. The school board members’ emails are listed below.
Please also consider asking your friends and family in East Baton Rouge Parish to send such an email as well. This is what democracy looks like: Voters taking action to protect the integrity of our elections.
Possible email:
Dear School Board Members,
Please ask the demographer, Mike Hefner, to create an illustrative map with 15 single-member districts for the purpose of evaluating its merits during a Public Forum and Redistricting Board Workshop. There are only two Public Forums and one Board Workshop remaining so I kindly ask that this map be created quickly. If Mr. Hefner is unable to create such a map quickly, I ask that the illustrative map with 15 single-member districts provided to the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund be discussed instead.
Thank you,
District 1 mbellue@ebrschools.org
District 2 DLanus@ebrschools.org
District 3 THoward4@ebrschools.org
District 4 dcollins1@ebrschools.org
District 5 EWareJackson@ebrschools.org
District 6 JDyason@ebrschools.org
District 7 MGaudet@ebrschools.org
District 8 CBernard@ebrschools.org
District 9 DTatman@ebrschools.org