Redistricting activists satisfied with plan adopted by council

The leadership of a citizen coalition that successfully lobbied the city council to reconsider a troubled redistricting plan has concluded that a new plan adopted by the Greensboro City Council after deliberation and public input does not appear to be retrogressive.

The plan adopted was submitted by District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade, part of the council’s conservative majority faction.

A press release issued yesterday by Democracy at Home, one of the coalition partners, states, “The community can be comforted in the fact that this plan does not appear to be retrogressive. According to our legal partners at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, one of the key factors for determining if a plan is retrogressive is a decrease in the black voting age population (BVAP), not the total black population. Plan E actually slightly increases the BVAP in District 1 from 70.47% to 70.82%, while it does decrease the BVAP in District 2 by only 0.29 percentage points.”

Allison Riggs, a voting rights attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said her clients are chalking up this week’s vote as a victory.

“The city council voted upon and adopted a horribly retrogressive plan without any public input or apparent thought,” Riggs said. “By the sheer organization and will of the community group, they got that removed. That’s a really powerful commentary that they were able to shame the council, and that’s a huge victory.”

Sharon Hightower, with coalition partner Guilford County Unity Effort, said, “The plan they adopted is a lot less complicated than the ‘Easter bunny plan.’ I call it that because it’s hopped up and they kept going.”

Hightower said she would have preferred that the council only reassign two precincts on the city’s eastern fringe affecting less than 1,000 voters. Those changes, which are for the purpose of reuniting split precincts to reduce the risk of election reporting errors, are also part of the plan most recently adopted by council.

Three of the four council members who voted for the now discredited plan are conservative Republicans. Another Republican on the nonpartisan council, Robbie Perkins, typically votes with the council’s liberal faction. Notwithstanding shared party membership, the tumultuous process has prompted reflection within the Guilford County Republican Party.

“Any political gains that might have been achieved through the Rakestraw plan were completely negated by the backlash,” said Michael Picarelli, the county party’s executive director.