More Fun With Redistricting As We Look at Caraway and Davis's Unusable Submissions

The next meeting of the Redistricting Commission is Tuesday -- I know, I know, settle down. At which point, the commission will discus yet another round of submissions, among them one from none other than council member Dwaine Caraway. Only, don't expect the presentation -- which will be made by commissioner Billy Ratcliff, poor guy -- to go very far, since Caraway's proposed map fails on almost every level.

How so? Well, let's turn to the staff analysis, which says, right off the bat, that Caraway's hodgepodge of a proposal doesn't meet one of the main criteria, Minority Representation. Says staff, "This plan submission does not meet the minority representation test. This plan includes 5 minority districts and 4 minority coalition districts. This constitutes retrogression of minority representation from the 2001 District Plan," which has six minority districts. Also, for some reason the former mayor has managed to come up with only two districts (4 and 8) that are majority African-American -- as opposed to the three found in most submissions, including Sam's. Caraway's one other big problem: "The districts are not contiguous and as such boundaries could not be written."

So, fail. But not nearly as big a fail as Carolyn Davis receives for her presentation ... if that's what one chooses to call her "partial plan submission," which is being generous. Davis, you see, is only concerned with District 7, her district, not the entirety of the city. Which may work around the horseshoe, but not with Ruth Morgan. And I'll leave it to you to look at Sandra Crenshaw's two submissions. Actually, Anna, that's all yers.