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Hearing set on legality of creating Hispanic congressional district
By Laura Myers
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Posted: Aug. 3, 2011 | 4:44 p.m.
Updated: Aug. 3, 2011 | 8:00 p.m.
Saying he wanted to "remove politics from this process," a state district judge on Wednesday named a three-member panel with no politicians to draw Nevada's new electoral maps for the first time in state history.
The "special masters" panel includes Alan Glover, the Carson City clerk-recorder, Las Vegas attorney Thomas Sheets and Robert Erickson, a retired research director of the Legislative Counsel Bureau who helped with past rounds of redistricting dating back to 1981.
Judge James Russell also said he would decide the sticky legal issues first before giving the panel the job of outlining Nevada's 42 legislative and four congressional districts, including a new one the state won because its population grew to 2.7 million people in the latest U.S. census.
The most controversial legal and political question is whether Hispanics merit a congressional district with a majority Latino population. He set a Sept. 19 hearing to decide that issue and others such as how to consider where incumbents live and what the starting point will be for drawing the new maps.
Once those legal and political issues are decided -- perhaps by the Nevada Supreme Court -- drawing the new maps could take as little as a week or two, said members of the panel.
"As soon as they settle the legal questions, this will give us a road map to follow and we can go from there," Glover said in an interview. "Technically, it could be done in a couple of weeks."
Erickson, who helped the public use computers to draw hypothetical maps in Las Vegas for the Legislative Counsel Bureau this past session, said he was looking forward to the task. He retired in 2004, but has been called back each biennial session to work and splits his time between Carson City and Las Vegas.
"I'm a geographer by training, and I really know the state so this is going to be great," Erickson said. "I love maps. I'm not intimidated by the mapping. I'm kind of excited about it."
As for politics, Glover served in the Nevada Legislature as a Democrat, but switched to the Republican Party four or five years ago so he could vote in a GOP primary.
In 1981, he chaired the Assembly committee that handled redistricting when Nevada won a 2nd congressional seat because of population growth. Another spurt won the state a 3rd district in 2001.
Erickson said he has been a registered non-partisan in Nevada for as long as he can remember after moving to the state in 1973. He worked for state government for two dozens years.
"My wife thinks I used to be a Republican. I think I used to be a Democrat," Erickson joked. "We don't really know. I would hope this is going to be a technical process, putting these districts together."
Glover and Erickson were both recommended for the panel by Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat. The judge rejected his political suggestions for the panel, including former U.S. Sen. and Gov. Richard Bryan, a Democrat, and former state Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno.
The judge also ignored all the panel suggestions by both political parties, who filed the lawsuits that put redistricting in the courts after GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval vetoed two Democratic plans.
Judge Russell on his own selected Sheets, the Las Vegas attorney who used to be chairman of the Nevada Tax Commission. He adds a Southern Nevada element to the panel.
Russell said he expected criticism.
"It was and is the intent of the court to attempt to remove politics from this process to the extent possible," Russell wrote in his order. "The court is not naive and understands that no matter who is appointed as special master, there will be criticism and comments, whether justified or not."
Attorneys for both the Republican and Democratic parties had asked the judge to determine whether the Voting Rights Act requires the state to draw one congressional district with a majority of Hispanics -- now 26 percent of Nevada's population -- so they have a better chance to elect a Latino representative. The GOP believes the law calls for giving the minority group that right. Democrats argue it's a violation of the act to determine district outlines based primarily on ethnicity.
What's at stake is which political party controls the four U.S. House seats. If Hispanics get their own district, it will be in Clark County and heavily Democratic. That would leave one other Democratic-friendly district and a Republican-friendly district in Southern Nevada. The Northern and rural Nevada District would likely remain GOP-leaning for an overall 2-2 House split by party.
If Latinos don't get their own district, Democrats will be more evenly spread out among the three Southern Nevada House seats, giving their party the advantage in two and making the third competitive, as is the swing 3rd Congressional District now held by U.S. Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev.
Contact reporter Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.