Former Indiana secretary of state candidate Vop Osili is making a run for the City-County Council seat now occupied by fellow Democrat Doris Minton-McNeill.Osili is assured of winning the seat because the district is so gerrymandered in favor of the Democrats it is a waste of time for a Republican to run in the district. At least this time the Democrats are picking someone who is qualified for the job and might actually make an effort to represent the "other people" who have been thrown into this largely African-American district.
Minton-McNeill said in an e-mail sent to Democrats on Monday that she won't seek another term in the District 15 seat in this year's election. Her message says Osili is running, and she will support him.
Osili could not be reached Monday but has been notifying Democrats of his decision. He lost the November election for secretary of state to Republican Charlie White.
Council District 15 covers parts of the Westside, the Near Northside and Downtown. Minton-McNeill was appointed in 2008 to replace Andre Carson after his election to the U.S. House.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Vop Osili Will Become My Councilor
Well, the Democrats in my city-county council district gave me Patrice Abduallah for nearly a term until I proved the guy never lived in the boarded up abandoned house in my district he claimed as a residence and was forced to resign. They appointed Andre Carson to the seat to pave the way for his ascension to his grandmother's congressional seat when she died. Next, they foisted Doris Minton-McNeil, an IPS employee who had a number of run-ins with police due to drinking problems on us. Now they're forcing asking Minton-McNeil to step aside to provide an elected office for their losing candidate for Secretary of State, Vop Osili. The Star reports:
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11 comments:
That District 15 is no more gerrymandered than any other district in Marion County. As you will recall, the Republicans had presented such an incredibly gerrymandered map that the Court threw it out and devised its own nonpartisan non-gerrymandered map from scratch.
"Community of interests" obviously was taken into account in configuring District 15.
Yeah, that pesky legal requirement! Who needs laws and lawyers, anyways?
Just move to Johnson County man. No Dems down here!!! I think it's against the law or something.
trivia for Johnson County:
PRESIDENT/V.P. OF THE U.S.
1 MCCAIN/PALIN (REP)36,483 62.07
2 OBAMA/BIDEN (DEM)21,550 36.66
3 BARR/ROOT (LIB) 561 0.95
So you won't mind, Wilson, if the Republicans in the legislature split Marion County into two congressional districts, adding a bunch of suburban voters into the mix?
Indianapolis has long had a unitary Congressional District, surrounded by several varying Congressional districts. The only argument advanced for such a proposed change is to openly gerrymander to dilute communities of interests, to allow a variety of suburban and rural voters to dilute the urban vote...
Wilson, Keeping together "communities of interest" is not a legal requirement when drawing district lines.
You are correct though that you can't discriminate against members of racial or ethnic minorities when drawming the maps...but that's only if there could be a congressional district drawn with 60% or so minority population The 7th District is not even close to that. The Republicans could legally divide Marion County in half when drawing district lines. I doubt they will because it could backfire on them..but legally they could.
By the way, Republicans and black Democrats generally are on the same side on redistricting matters. The reason why is that the creationof minority majority districts allow Republicans to concentrate more traditionally-Democratic voters into fewer district. It's generally white Democrats who oppose the creation of majority-minority districts...they prefer that the African-American vote be spread out so they can win more districts. When you create majority-minority districts you actually end up creating fewer Democratic districts.
Of course this is all irrelevant to the 7th District. You can't draw that district to be a majority-minority district.
If Republican don't use redisticting to take out Carson, it will do no better than hope to hold the seats the party currently holds. Tinkering to make either the 8th or 9th Districts more Republican will make the other district tougher to win. The districts in the central part of the state, save the 7th, are overwhelmingly Republican. You can easily pick up another Republican seat if you split Marion County down the middle. The two resulting districts would be relatively compact. The 2nd District would be tough to make more Republican without hurting Stutzman. You would really have to carve up the 1st District into an unusual district to make it more Republican. It isn't worth the effort.
I'd give anything to know what they offered her.
The current districts were designed by the courts because the GOP was so blatant in the gerrymander of the districts that they were illegal. The court was a nonpartisan panel of judges of both parties who used compactness and communities of interest without regard to political voting patterns or where any potential candidate or incumbent lived. How much fairer can you be. You have chosen to live in a Democratic stronghold. You can't complain that your representatives are all Democrats.
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