Ten secrets of redistricting.

If you haven't already done something about all these gems of advice, you'd better hurry.

Redistricting is a wonderful mix of politics, law, cartography, demography and computer science. And you may feel that you need the wisdom of Solomon to accomplish it.

Recall the great story of Solomon's wisdom: Two women claim to be the mother of the same baby, so Solomon proposes to cut the baby in two and give each woman half. The first woman says, "Let me think about it." The other says, "Give the baby to her," revealing herself as the true mother.

If the baby had been a legislative district, the two women would have said, "Sure, cut it up," and then fought over the halves. Eventually, they would have sued each other - one in state court, one in federal court.

Even Solomon's wisdom might not be enough to aid you in the decennial redistricting that looms following the 2000 census. By following the 10 nuggets of advice below, however, you might manage to avoid some long nights and major headaches. Redistricting will never be easy or simple, but there are ways to minimize the trauma.

1. Know your mission

Adopt a mission such as "draw a legislative redistricting plan according to constitutional standards by Dec. 3, 2001." This will help you stay focused on the real business of redistricting - churning out maps. Read the redistricting statute and the state constitution - everyone else will. For example, the statute may authorize you to borrow staff from other state agencies. It may also limit travel reimbursement for committee members after a set number of days.

Does your mission include keeping the public informed? Citizens are certain to offer input and ask to be involved. Consider putting a site on the World Wide Web to disseminate basic census data, precinct maps, redistricting plans and information about the legislature's redistricting process. As part of knowing your mission, you should understand your history. If you're new to redistricting, it will help to find out what issues emerged in your state during the previous redistricting cycles. History has a way of repeating itself. Issues from the '80s and '90s will almost certainly re-emerge.

2. Make decisions early.

Computer technology and redistricting go hand in hand. Your state must decide if it will write software locally or purchase an offthe-shelf system. States like New Jersey and Virginia with elections in 2001, should be designing systems right now. Many states will start drawing new districts the day after receiving data from the Census Bureau. You do not want to design and build the airplane as it taxies down the runway. Accomplish as many tasks ahead of time as possible.

Here are some of the things to do early to make the job easier:

* Create a large scale map book using census blocks, and include every member's residence.

* Decide whether to set up public-use computer terminals and, if so, set them up.

* Print demographic reports of the current districts and voting precincts.

* Set a cut-off date for changing local voting precincts in your data base.

* Adopt criteria to govern drawing of all plans to be considered by the committee.

* Calculate the actual cost of maps for sale to the public.

* Requisition a large color plotter (for printing maps) and photocopier to be dedicated to redistricting.

* Start communicating with local officials through informational memos and regional meetings.

* Work out a process with local officials for getting updated precinct maps that you can digitize.

* Adopt rules for acceptance of third-party plans.

* Consult and hire outside legal counsel to assist the legislature if you do not have expertise in house.

3. Plan a timeline.

Another useful device is a timeline. Analyze your 1990 experience and plan purchases of equipment and software in stages up through the year 2001. The plan can be modified as you move along. Due to U.S. Supreme Court decisions, consider whether your software will include a "compactness test." Computer programs can calculate how compact a district is by several recognized methods. Early on, select the features your software will offer, and pick what data to include in your files. Will you have past electoral behavior of each precinct? For which elections? It seems like just a data problem to the staff, but election history data is very subjective stuff with complex political implications. Acquiring data from local governments may present major challenges. With election data, you must have precinct maps in effect on the date of the election.

4. Provide security for files.

Secure both paper and digital files. As a general rule, copy all data on a computer disk to back up tapes daily. A disk crash won't hurt too badly if yesterday's plan is saved on the tape backup. Redistricting plans generated by legislators are the very essence of the process and must be treated as extremely valuable documents. Have uniform methods for labeling, filing and indexing plans and maps that you generate as well as maps received from others. Create a form, or small label, that has the minimum information to appear on plans and maps.

5. When it comes to staff, redundancy is good!

As a staff person, when you're hot, you're hot - and everybody loves you. Legislators will love you. They will come to see you every day, all day long. They will call you at home. You will get to know them well. You will need more staff. Redistricting resembles "tag-team" wrestling. You need people to gather and edit data, maintain the software and network, draw districts, and keep up with all the collateral files. Plan a way to get extra terminal operators on short notice. Train staff to run redistricting software. Plan for enough staff to cover for illnesses. Identify a good manager to oversee the whole circus.

6. When it comes to equipment, redundancy is good!

Make sure you have enough computer equipment. Never underestimate the need for more terminals, better processor speed, more disk space, faster networks or color plotters. Equipment will break down. When legislators, with little spare time, sit at a computer terminal to draw new districts, speed really counts. Advanced testing is critical. How many active terminals will the operation need at a time? How long will work sessions last? Mississippi usually had two terminals going at once for about 12 hours per day. But at times, there were four terminals running, and sometimes sessions lasted 16 hours a day for days at a time. You will not regret acquiring the fastest computers. And hire enough terminal operators to support the effort. There are infinite ways to draw a district, and you may come close to exploring them all. Terminals will be busy most of the time. And don't forget to have comfortable chairs.

7. Separate the warring factions.

I don't want to give redistricting a bad name, but it's a war, and war is hell. Doors and windows can cause problems because people can and will look through them to sneak a peek. Those drawing plans need privacy. Separate staff from members. Talk to the capitol police or sergeant at arms about security issues.

8. Don't play on the railroad tracks.

Take extra care in the vicinity of great forces. No matter how many computers and staff are available, all resources will be used. In times of crisis, the demand will exceed the supply. Someone must act as gatekeeper to determine who gets to use the machines and the staff. Redistricting can be one of the toughest issues that a legislature has to deal with because it affects every member directly. Unfortunately, redistricting can bring out the worst in people. At some point, if the politics get too tough, the staff or other legislators may want to jump in between the contenders. However, one shouldn't feel the urge to step in between two oncoming trains. Don't make promises you can't keep. Don't forget the high stakes involved and that you lack control over the multitude of players.

9. Learn the new math.

In drawing minority districts - or trying to maximize the number of them - you may fall well below the ideal population. If you try to minimize the number of those districts, they might become overpopulated. Therefore, the average (mean) population deviation from the ideal district size for all minority-controlled districts can indicate the effort to create minority districts. Consider the following equation. A = B/C where A = theoretical maximum percentage of minoritycontrolled districts in the plan, B = minority percentage of the overall population and C = percentage of a minority needed in a district for it to control the district. So, if there are 100 districts and the minority makes up 40 percent of the population, and it needs 60 percent of a district to control it, one could draw 66 districts controlled by the minority. This equation assumes an overall deviation of zero percent and ignores compactness. In the real world, you can draw a plan with a 10 percent deviation overall (for a state legislature), which may make it easier to draw minority-controlled districts. You cannot achieve the maximum because of the dispersion of the minority population, but you can probably do more than you thought possible. This formula explains why plans drawn by human beings tend toward gerrymanders rather than compactness.

10. Adopt a grand strategy.

Sometimes the staff draws the plan, and sometimes the legislators do it. But regardless, it helps to look at the state overall before you start. In a statewide plan, where you want to make only changes that are absolutely necessary, you can begin with the existing plans. In an area experiencing dramatic population gains or losses, you may have to move or "pop" a district from one part of the state to another. But "popping" a district is a decision that is easier to make on the front end than after the plan is nearly done. If you are working with a particular criterion in mind, start in the most important place. If you want to create minority-controlled districts, start with them. Keep in mind that according to the Supreme Court, creating minority districts cannot be the predominant factor in the development of the plan. Generally, the place where you start will have the most compact districts, and the last area where you work will look the most contorted. You can judge this book by its cover because oddly shaped districts reveal the stresses of using conflicting criteria. If a district looks like a lizard, it probably is one.

THE REAL GAME IS POLITICS

Never forget that technology is only a tool and will play a minor part in the real game of deciding the geographical content or shape of districts. Redistricting is foremost a political activity that is supported and constrained by technology and law. Never assume or underestimate the political motivations of players in the redistricting game.

To run a redistricting office, you need to understand the nature of census data, the technology you will use to manipulate the data, the political environment that surrounds redistricting and the legal restraints upon the process. Add that understanding to the wisdom of Solomon, and you may emerge from the process relatively unscathed. (And it might not hurt to follow the 10 pieces of advice offered above.) Happy line drawing.

Editor's note: NCSL's next national redistricting seminar, Plotting the 00s Maps, is Nov. 7-9 in Burlington, Vt. Call Tim Storey at [phone].

CENSUS 2000 IS UNDER WAY

Census Day - April 1, 2000 - is still a few months away, but the work is well under way.

Over 130 local census offices of the full complement of 520 were open by late spring of 1999. Congress approved full funding for FY 1999 and allocated $44 million above the funding level the president had requested. The field work to canvass and check blocklevel census address lists was completed ahead of schedule in May. Partnerships to promote the importance of everyone completing the census form are in place with more than 22,000 government and nongovernment organizations at the local and national levels.

Although many efforts are moving ahead, we need your assistance. As state legislators, you know the residents of your districts and what messages work best to enlist their support for Census 2000. Currently over $180 billion in federal funds are apportioned to the 39,000 state and local governments on the basis of census numbers. And of course, representation in the local and state legislative bodies and Congress is based on census population totals. If you have not done so already, we ask you to get involved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Here's what you can do to motivate participation in Census 2000:

* Encourage your towns and counties to form "complete count committees" to develop and carry out Census 2000 promotion events.

* Call periodic press conferences along with local leaders to talk about the importance of the census.

* Arrange with local newspapers and publications to feature you and other leaders promoting participation in the census. Emphasize that answering the census is easy and safe, and that it is important that everyone in every household be counted.

* Publicize the availability of census jobs.

* Include Census 2000 in your speeches at meetings and community events.

* Encourage superintendents, curriculum directors, principals and teachers to include "Census in Schools Project" materials developed by Scholastic Inc., in their curriculum next year.

The Census Bureau needs your help to make Census 2000 the best census ever for our nation, your state and your legislative district. For information about the Census 2000 Partnership specialist in your state, please call Marshall Turner, [phone] or send e-mail to [e-mail].

- Kenneth Prewitt Director U.S. Census Bureau

RELATED ARTICLE: KEY REDISTRICTING WORDS AND PHRASES 

PL 94-171. Congress passed this law in 1975, requiring the U.S. Census Bureau to furnish state governments data by April 1 of the year after the census for use in redistricting. The law requires that the bureau allow states to define the boundaries of the areas in which population data is collected.

TIGER. Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing - the system and digital database developed at the Census Bureau to support its mapping needs for the census.

Census Block. The smallest unit of geography used by the Census Bureau for counting people. There are over 7 million blocks in the Census Bureau's database. Blocks are almost always bounded by visible features such as roads and rivers.

Phase I and Phase II. Programs run by the Census Bureau to collect boundary information from state and local governments. Phase 1 allows states to suggest boundaries for census blocks. Phase 2 lets states group blocks into precincts so the official census data will contain precinct population totals.

VTD. Voting tabulation district - usually a precinct or a ward.

Minor Civil Division. A supervisor's district, police jury district or township. Typically, subdivisions of a county.

Undercount. The estimated number of people who are not counted by the census.

Differential Undercount. The difference in the undercount between ethnic groups. The undercount for ethnic groups has traditionally been higher than for whites.

Sampling. A statistical technique used to estimate the whole population based on a sample. Proposed as a remedy for the undercount.

GIS. Geographic Information System. Computer software that can display spatially encoded data in the form of maps.

Overall Range or Overall Deviation. For a redistricting plan, the difference in population between the smallest and largest district, normally expressed as a percentage.

Majority-minority districts. Districts where an ethnic or language minority group has more than half of the population.

VAP. Voting age population - number of people over the age of 18.

BVAP. Black voting age percentage - the percentage of population of blacks, 18 years or older.

Packing. Drawing a minority-controlled district with an excessively high percentage of a minority population, "wasting" the additional people who could increase the minority population of another district. This is not allowed against an ethnic minority but is permissible against a political party.

Fracturing. Splitting an area where a minority group lives so that it cannot form an effective majority in a district.

Retrogression. Drawing a redistricting plan that reduces the chances for minority groups to elect representatives of their choice.

Section 5 Preclearance. The procedure required by the Voting Rights Act where the Department of Justice must approve any change in election laws including any redistricting plan before the law becomes effective. Section 5 applies in all or parts of 16 states.

- Tim Storey, NCSL 

Steve Miller worked as a nonpartisan redistricting staff member for the PEER Committee in Mississippi during the 1990 round of redistricting and now is the chief of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau. He is also the staff co-chair of the NCSL Redistricting Task Force.