Red-light district

“ Following the completion of the census, redistricting or the redrawing of electoral district boundaries will take place under the principle of maintaining roughly equal population in every voting district while considering demographic shifts. Under the US Constitution, each state legislature has the power to redistrict. ”

“ I cannot comprehend that the power of legislating over a small district, which cannot exceed ten miles square, and may not be more than one mile, will involve the dangers which he apprehends. If there be any knowledge in my mind of the nature of man, I should think it would be the last thing that would enter into the mind of any man to grant exclusive advantages, in a very circumscribed district, to the prejudice of the community at large. We make suppositions, and afterwards deduce conclusions from them, as if they were established axioms. ”

“ To secure this result, each state is divided into election districts presumably of as nearly equal population as possible, the senatorial districts being the larger. In practice, however, these districts do not always have representation proportional to their population. The county is often the unit of representation, or in New England the town, and these districts vary greatly in population. An attempt is made to equalize the difference by providing that no district shall have less than one representative, and often that none shall have more than a certain number. ”

“ Suppose, however, that the municipality be large enough to be readily divided into as many wieldy districts as there are commissioners to the number of from five to nine. For instance, let us assume a city of to exceed 25,000 male voters and a population exceeding 150,000. Here the district is too unwieldy for the election at large of those candidates receiving the highest votes at a single election. It may be doubted whether the double election will produce satisfactory results in the way of securing a really intelligent vote. ”

“ But Alabama’s premise is wrong. As the Court’s precedents make clear, Gingles does not mandate a proportional number of majority-minority districts. Gingles requires the creation of a majority-minority district only when, among other things, (i) a State’s redistricting map cracks or packs a large and “geographically compact” minority population and (ii) a plaintiff ’s proposed alternative map and proposed majority-minority district are “reasonably configured”—namely, by respecting compactness principles and other traditional districting criteria such as county, city, and town lines. ”

“ Since discrimination is present among counties of like population, the plan is neither consistent nor rational. It discriminates horizontally creating gross disparities between rural areas themselves as well as between urban areas themselves, [8] still maintaining the wide vertical disparity already pointed out between rural and urban.
It is also insisted that the representation formula used above (see [7] ) is "patently deficient" because "it eliminates from consideration the relative voting power of the counties that are joined together in a single election district." ”

“ Could it be said that the number of stops between the city of origin and the destination was not a “predominant” factor in the search for a good flight? The obvious answer to both these questions is no, and the same is true about the role of race in the creation of a new district. If it is “non-negotiable” that the district be majority black, then race is given a predominant role.
The District Court wrapped up this portion of its opinion with a passage that highlighted its misunderstanding of the first Gingles precondition. ”

“ Each district shall contain a population, excluding nonresident military personnel, as nearly equal as practicable to the population of any other district. To the extent reasonable, each district shall contain contiguous territory, shall be compact and convenient, and shall be separated from adjoining districts by natural geographic barriers, artificial barriers, or political subdivision boundaries. The commission's plan shall not provide for a number of legislative districts different than that established by the legislature. ”

“ Manhattan is divided into four districts and as a result of the serpentine path that the lines follow, those districts reflect substantial, though not complete, segregation by races:
20th.................. 72.5. 27.5 In 1961 the legislature expanded the Seventeenth District by altering its boundaries in three respects: (1) it added an area on the upper East Side between 59th Street and 89th Street of whose population Negroes and Puerto Ricans make up 2.7% of the total ”

“ The election district furthermore should always be kept as large as possible and always larger than the personal reputation of anyone who would be likely to seek a given office which the voters of the district select. Methods of redistricting can be devised and carried out so as to yield the maximum amount of power for the extra-legal government for the time being in power. ”

“ III It was of course the fact that the “values” here were all such, and such alone, as might be reflected from the social conditions and the state of manners, even if reflected, for the hour, almost into empty space—it was this that gave weight to each perceived appearance and permitted none to show as trivial enough to project me, in reaction or in inanition, upon the comparative obviousness of the “burnt district.” There is almost always a burnt district to eke out the interest of an American city—it is the pride of the citizen and the resource of the visitor when all else fails ”

“ I strongly deprecate legislation looking to the election of a Territorial legislature in that vast district. The lack of permanence of residence of a large part of the present population and the small number of the people who either permanently or temporarily reside in the district as compared with its vast expanse and the variety of the interests that have to be subserved, make it altogether unfitting in my judgment to provide for a popular election of a legislative body. The present system is not adequate and does not furnish the character of local control that ought to be there. ”

“ Just remember that there's thirty-five Assembly districts in New York County, and thirty-six district leaders reachin' out for the Tammany dough-bag for somethin' to keep up the patriotism of ten thousand workers, and you wouldn't wonder that the cry for more, more, is goin' up from every district organization now and forevermore. ”

“ New York does not attempt to defend its plan as a good-faith effort to achieve districts of approximate equality. It argues that it devised a plan based upon the grouping of districts into regions. I agree with the majority that, for purposes of the congressional districting here involved, the State may not substantially or grossly disregard population or residence figures in order to recognize regional groupings within the State. ”

“ Could not ten intelligent men, chosen from ten districts from this state, lay direct taxes on a few objects in the most judicious manner? It is to be conceived that they would be acquainted with the situation of different citizens of this country. Can any one divide this state into ten districts so as not to contain men of sufficient information? Could not one man of knowledge be found in a district? ”

“ In other words, the statutory scheme is to make the districts, outside of the separate school districts, districts for the particular race, white or colored, so that the territorial limits of the school districts need not be the same, but the territory embraced in a school district for the colored race may not be the same territory embraced in the school district for the white race, and vice versa, which system of creating the common school districts for the two races, white and colored, do not require schools for each race as such to be maintained in each district ”

“ There is a great deal of debate in Washington about redistricting to meet the new population pattern. It doesn't seem too important, though, because a land of nearly self-sufficient communities, such as this is becoming, is much less dependent on central government. ”

“ They were annexed to the British Dominions in 1871, and have been governed since that time by a resident Sub-Governor under the Governor and High Commissioner of the Cape Colony. The district will now have a certain allotment of members of Parliament, but it has not any strong bearing on the question we are considering. The population of the district is of a shifting nature, the greater portion of even the coloured people having been drawn there by the wages offered by capitalists in search of diamonds. ”

“ Members of the Arizona Legislature who were elected in the 1970 election were elected under a plan the District Court held unconstitutional. Under that plan a computer was instructed to redistrict the State and to accomplish, in order, the following objectives: (1) to make the districts as equal in population as possible; (2) to circumscribe the districts in such a way that each included one incumbent senator and two incumbent representatives ”

“ Invariably the large vice districts have been created within or near the settlements of colored people. In the past history of the city every time a new vice district was created downtown or on the South Side, the colored families were in the district moving in just ahead of the prostitutes. ”

“ In the connection in which it stands it signifies a district inferior to a county, for it is used to denote a portion of a county; and superior to a township, for the enumeration evidently proceeds from the greater to the less,-'precinct, township, school-district.' What tax-districts are there in Wyoming inferior to a county and superior to a township, if incorporated cities and towns are not such?
As before suggested, the railroad assessment law, considering its purpose and object, ought to be extended to every tax-district in the state, if its language admits of such a construction. ”

“ A school district is one machine, a township another, a county [Pg 191] another, and a state another—all independent organizations, yet every community must work its own organization. They are not operated afar off by some great central power, over the heads of the people; but they are worked by the people themselves, for themselves. ”

“ Despite the absence of any specific provisions in the State Constitution, population has generally been traditionally regarded as the most important factor for legislative consideration in reapportioning and redistricting. Because cities and counties have consistently not been split or divided for purposes of legislative representation, multimember districts have been utilized for cities and counties whose populations entitle them to more than a single representative, resulting in there always being less than 100 delegate districts and less than 40 senatorial districts. ”

“ Now, what about the farm vote in New Jersey in relation to the falling prices. You take that?
Frelinghuysen
Well, of course, maybe I should explain a little bit more about the fifth district. In the first place it is, has been, and is, and I'm sure will continue to be, strongly Republican. It's a very good district, it has a lot of variety. There are a good many farmers, there are a great many commuters, residents, and there is a growing industrialization of the area. So it's a good cross-section of America. I'm very glad to represent as articulate and intelligent a constituency as I have. ”

“ The fact that Negro political leaders find advantage in this nearly solid Negro and Puerto Rican district is irrelevant to our problem. Rotten boroughs were long a curse of democratic processes. Racial boroughs are also at war with democratic standards.
What we have in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Districts in Manhattan is comparable to the Electoral Register System which Britain introduced into India. That system gave a separate constituency to Sikhs, Muslims, Anglo-Indians, Europeans, and Indian Christians. ”

“ In 1878 the farms along the south side of the Run were parceled into lots, and the district in the neighborhood of Trumbull and East 37th streets became a residence district known as “na vrsku” (on the hill) . Broadway, already in existence as a county road, formed the axis of the new settlement, and the development of the whole district from East 37th street to Union avenue took place very quickly and the 24th ward (now the 13th) a chronicler informs us, became “like a city of Bohemia.” ”

“ Of course we take a great and to some extent justifiable pride in our Local Government institutions, but as the world becomes more complex and difficult, it is beginning to be seen that backward and less intelligent districts do not get the full value out of legislation and rates that a progressive and vigorous district obtains. It is one thing to pass an Act of Parliament and another thing to get a local elective body to administer it intelligently. ”

“ It is too late to question the right of the general assembly to establish particular districts for the attainment of special local public good, through works of a particular character, and to order itself, or authorize some political body to order, special assessments to be made, within the district, for the purpose of meeting the cost and expenses of such works. ”

“ A subsequent act, passed on the 3d of March 1791, authorised some alterations of the limits of the district. Suitable cessions of the jurisdiction and soil of the territory, subject to the private rights of property of the inhabitants, were made by the states of Maryland and Virginia (a) . And the former act further provided for the removal of the seat of government to the district on the first Monday of December 1800. The limits of the district were accordingly ascertained and defined; as made known by the proclamations of the president of the 24th of January and the 30th of March 1791. ”