New district boundaries are expected to be established this week for certain county council seats after the Brown County Commissioners met Nov. 17.
In October, the commissioners asked for proposals from the community for a new district map for the four Brown County Council seats elected by districts. There are seven county council members in total. The other three are elected at-large, or by the entire county.
The commissioners decided early in October to look at the precincts that make up the county council districts after approving changes to the Washington Township precincts and Census data showed a population deviation gap between the districts with the highest and lowest populations.
Indiana Code 36-2-3-4 states county council districts must: be compact and subject only to natural boundary lines, like railroads, major highways, creeks and parks; not cross precinct boundary lines; contain, as nearly as possible, equal population; and include whole townships, “except when a division is clearly necessary to accomplish redistricting under this section.”
The precinct boundaries must also touch that make up a district. State statute sets the number of county council members in counties with certain populations at seven with four being elected by district and three elected at-large by the entire county.
The school board and commissioner districts will also change due to the Washington Township reconfiguration. All county voters cast their vote in each of those races, but districts are used for school board and commissioner races to give interested candidates an assigned area to represent.
Indiana Code also states that commissioners have a deadline of Dec. 31 to file their adopted ordinance to redraw or recertify the council and county commissioner districts to the county clerk.
Under the precinct map the commissioners presented on Oct. 20, District 4 would now be made up of Jackson 4, Washington 3 and Van Buren precincts. District 3 would include only Washington 1 and 2. District 2 would be made up of Hamblen 2, Jackson 1 and Jackson 3. District 1 would be made up of Hamblen 1, Hamblen 3 and Jackson 2.
The largest population gap for county council districts under that map is between District 1 and District 4 at 742 people, which is down from 895 people.
County council districts are based on population and not the number of active voters. Precincts cannot be divided between two districts.
County council member Gary Huett is the District 1 council member. The 2021 population for District 1 was 3,548.
Art Knight is from District 4. That district population is 4,290 this year.
Darren Byrd represents District 2 and Dave Redding is the District 3 council member.
In August, the Brown County Election Board recommended and the Brown County Commissioners approved reconfiguring all of Washington Township’s four voting precincts. The order establishing the new districts was approved on Oct. 13.
Washington Township includes voters who live inside the town limits of Nashville and voters who live outside town limits but still have Nashville postal addresses. This has caused some confusion in past elections.
The changes that will take place in 2022 and beyond are:The four voting precincts in Washington Township will be condensed to three.
All in-town Nashville voters will be in Washington 2.
Out-of-town voters who used to be split between Washington 2 and Washington 3 will now be added to Washington 1.
The current Washington 4 will be renamed Washington 3.
The precinct change happened after Nashville Town Council decided to elect all of its members at-large from among in-town residents instead of requiring three of them to live in specific areas of Nashville.
The county now has 11 precincts to make up the four county council districts.
Map proposals
Proposals for a new county council district map were due back at the Nov. 3 commissioners meeting. There were three proposals submitted along with the one the commissioners presented on Oct. 20.
Two proposals were from Clerk Kathy Smith and one was from the League of Women Voters Brown County.
One of Smith’s maps had the population deviation at 732. Under that map, Jackson Township precincts are split up between three districts and Hamblen Township precincts are split between two districts.
Washington 1 and Van Buren made up one district; Washington 3, Washington 2 and Jackson 4 made up a second district; Jackson 1, Jackson 3 and Hamblen 2 made up a third district; and Jackson 2, Hamblen 1 and Hamblen 3 were the fourth district.
The other map Smith proposed had a population gap of 605. With that map, Jackson 4, Washington 3 and Van Buren were a district; Washington 1 and 2 made up another district; Hamblen 3, 2 and Jackson 2 were a third district; and Jackson 1, 2 and Hamblen 2 made up a fourth.
The League submitted a map to the commissioners that kept almost all of the townships together, but created a larger gap in population. Under the LOWV map, the population deviation would be 1,104 people between District 1 and District 4.
The League proposed District 1 be made up of the three Hamblen Township precincts and that District 2 would include all four of the Jackson Township precincts. District 3 would be the Washington 2 precinct, or the town of Nashville, and Washington 1 precinct. District 4 would be Van Buren and Washington 3.
The League’s Co-Vice President Sonia Leerkamp told the commissioners on Nov. 3 that their map represents one of the primary goals of redistricting, which is keeping voters with common interests in particular areas of the county together.
Leerkamp was the chair of the Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission this legislative session, which was a citizen redistricting commission developed by the coalition All In For Democracy.
“It also serves well the individual who represents the citizens in that district because they can focus on the issues that are most common to those particular districts and be able to understand the issues and be able to vote accordingly. That was a primary interest to us,” Leerkamp said of the map proposal.
“We also were very focused on the fact the statute says that districts should include whole townships unless there is a good stated reason why they do not. With the original proposed districts there were lots of divisions of townships that we felt needed to be explained if that map was going to be approved.”
Leerkamp said that the League feels that population equality in districts is one of the lower priorities of redistricting at the county level.
The maximum population deviation for state legislative districts is 10 percent with exceptions that can be approved by states to meet other criteria. The maximum deviation allowed for counties is unclear.
“There really are no reference to population deviation for when you get down to the county level and I think a lot of it is because the smaller populations and the pockets of those populations,” Leerkamp said.
“That’s why I think that working with the interests of the individuals contained within the townships takes a higher priority in county redistricting.”
Leerkamp said that in order to achieve a more equal distribution of population in the districts would require looking at reconfiguring precinct boundaries.
“I am not advocating change for the sake of change. We analyzed it from a standpoint of various interests in Brown County. I was honored to be able to bring some of my perspective from having worked on that commission. Hearing over and over again that people who have like interests like to be together, to be able to lobby for those interests. That weighed heavily on our recommendation,” she said.
Leerkamp said she believes it’s clear in the statute that the state does not want counties dividing townships up unless for good reason.
Commissioner Diana Biddle said the representation on the League’s map was “much clearer.”
“The decision we have to make is are we going to go by population or are we going to go by areas of interest?” Biddle said.
The League’s Co-Vice President Laurie Teal said that the commissioners should start looking at redistricting now for 2030 when new Census numbers will be available.
Biddle said that if the county received its Census numbers last year instead of them being delayed due to COVID-19 that there may have been a recommendation to re-precinct.
“I would be surprised in 10 years if Van Buren stays a single precinct because of the growth that is occurring down there,” she said.
A decision is expected to be made at the Nov. 17 commissioners meeting in the Salmon Room at the County Office Building beginning at 2 p.m. Once a map is picked an ordinance will need to be approved, Smith said.
