Austin's Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission

After several attempts to replace the at-large election of Austin City Council members with a single-member district election system, voters approved a charter amendment in 2012 that substituted an 11-member city council with 10 members elected from single-member districts and the mayor elected at large for the seven-member council with all members elected in an at-large-by-place system.

To draw the boundaries for the new single-member districts, the charter amendment called for the creation of an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC), which was patterned after the California commission that was created to draw California’s state legislative districts, Board of Equalization districts, and (later) congressional districts. According to the Austin Charter amendment, 14 commissioners would constitute the ICRC. Citizens of Austin were encouraged to apply for the commission, completing an application that required written statements describing the applicant’s relevant analytical skills, ability to be impartial, appreciation for the City of Austin’s diverse demographics and geography, and other information that the applicant wishes to be considered. To be eligible for membership on the commission, an applicant must reside in the City of Austin, be registered to vote, been continuously registered to vote in the City of Austin for the five years immediately preceding the date of the application, not have any conflicts of interest, and voted in at least three of the last five City of Austin general elections.

By the end of the application period (February 22, 2013), more than 500 Austin residents had applied. A panel of three certified public accountants (CPAs) was selected to review the applications and designate the 60 most qualified applicants. The three CPAs constituted the Applicant Review Panel (ARP). On May 18, 2013, the ARP submitted the list of 60 most qualified applicants to the Austin city council. Each council member could strike one of the applicants. None of the council members exercised this right.

On May 22, 2013, the Office of the City Auditor’s representative randomly selected the initial eight commissioners. These eight commissioners will be sworn in during their initial meeting on May 31, 2013. They will be responsible for selecting the remaining six members of the commission. Since the charter amendment requires that one of the commissioners be a student and since none of the eight chosen by random was a student, one of the two students who are among the 60 most qualified applicants must be chosen to be a commissioner. The other five commissioners are to be chosen with the objective of balancing the commission in terms of race, ethnicity, geography, and gender. The following table depicts the characteristics of the original eight commissioners:

Name	County Commissioners Precinct	Gender	Ethnicity	Education	Age
Blanco, Magdalena	1	Female	Hispanic	M.A., Public Administration	35-44
Diaz-Miranda, Mariano	4	Male	Hispanic	Ph.D., History	65+
Farris, Rachel	4	Female	Anglo	B.A., Organizational Communication	25-34
Hewitt, William	4	Male	American Indian	Ph.D., History	65+
Llanes Pulido, Carmen	1	Female	Hispanic	B.A., Environmental Studies	25-34
Lopez, Arthur	2	Male	Hispanic	B.A., Mechanical Engineering	45-54
Saenz, Anna	4	Female	Hispanic	B.A., Spanish	55-64
Solis, Maria	4	Female	Hispanic	A.A.	55-64

The commission’s first responsibility is to select the remaining six members of the ICRC. They are charged with selecting the most qualified applicants from the remaining 52 applicants while attempting to balance the commission in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and geography. Since both students who are among the most qualified applicants reside in county commissioners precinct 3, the geography will require that the remaining commissioners be chosen from precincts 1, 2, and 3, if possible. Since precinct 1 has two commissioners now, an equitable distribution would include one applicant from precinct 1, two applicants from precinct 2, and two applicants from precinct 3. In terms of gender, the commission needs two additional females and four additional males to provide an equal representation of males and females. In terms of race/ethnicity, Austin’s population, according to the 2010 census, was 48.7 percent Anglo, 35.1 percent Hispanic, 7.7 percent African American, 6.3 percent Asian American, and 2.2 percent other.  Given that there are already six Hispanics on the commission (42 percent of all commissioners), the remaining six commissioners should include Anglos, African Americans, and Asian Americans, although the charter specifically notes that there is no racial quota involved.

You can follow the ICRC meetings and documents at this Web site: http://austintexas.gov/content/independent-citizens-redistricting-commission