Redistricting maps thwarted public process

They say you never want to see sausage being made. True, but at least you end up with delicious sausage to eat at the end of the process. Not so when you watch law being made. I attended the presentation of the RAC redistricting maps for Hays County at the Wimberley Community Center. The RAC is a bipartisan committee that worked for two months on making these maps fair and equal. They had narrowed it down to two similar ones. On Thursday, county commissioners met in an attempt to reconcile them into just one proposed map.

That goal was derailed when Lon Shell proposed the maps were out of compliance. They were not, according to the county commissioner’s lawyer.

I also attended the County Commissioners hearing to vote on the maps and discovered Lon Shell had made his own map, CC2, with no public input and almost no commissioners’ review since it was submitted late Friday and the vote was scheduled for Tuesday morning. Even though the public process was thwarted and CC2 diluted the voice of Hispanic citizens, Lon Shell’s map was approved. I’d rather watch sausage being made. I don’t have to eat the sausage but I do have to live with the results of our system being hijacked.

Beverly Clark