Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Communitites of interest

Peppi Bruneau's terminology is interesting here. For whatever reason he figures "conservative" is synonymous with "white" in New Orleans. Some of us might beg to differ.
A number of supporters came out to argue for a map that Bonin favors. At one point he even asked them all to stand and had Morris, the board attorney, count them. They came to about 50.

Among them was Bonin's Republican ally and longtime former state lawmaker Emile "Peppi" Bruneau, who argued that the plan favored by Bonin would preserve certain "communities of interest," a more "conservative" one centered in Bonin's Lakeview district and a "minority" one toward the eastern portion of the city.


Of course he probably means only to say that a Lakeview district is probably a conservative voting bloc about which he gets no argument from anyone.

The article doesn't make clear specifically which of these alternative maps Brett Bonin and Thomas Robichaux are disagreeing over but the description suggests that Bonin is arguing for something that looks like this while Robichaux favors one more like this.
Deciding exactly how to draw the new lines has divided the board starkly. At issue is the line between the 3rd District, represented by Brett Bonin, and the 7th District, represented by Robichaux.

Bonin is essentially accusing Robichaux of trying to water down minority voting strength in the 7th District, an area that encompasses some of the city's historically black neighborhoods, by taking more heavily white precincts in the Bayou St. John neighborhood from the 3rd District.
My read on this, though, is that it's actually Bonin who is trying to preserve a gerrymandered "conservative community of interest" in the Lakeview district. At least that's what my best guess at the maps under discussion indicates. Which is why I don't quite get why Sandra Hester agrees with Bonin here. Either way, it is thanks to Ms. Hester's habit of peskily throwing herself upon the wheels of the machine that this story even made the front page this morning. So congratulations to her once again.

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