New Asheville districts are racial gerrymandering, black council members say

Joel Burgess | The Citizen-Times

ASHEVILLE - Decades ago, cities across the country with sizeable black populations - but with few elected black representatives in government - made what was heralded as a strikingly progressive change. They carved out city council districts with lines designed to give African-American candidates a fair shot at winning.

A newly passed state law imposing council districts on Asheville could do the opposite, critics say.

"It's obvious, from the way these district maps are surgically drawn it will dilute the black vote especially," said Sheneika Smith, one of two African Americans on Asheville's governing body.

Backed by a majority-GOP General Assembly, Senate Bill 813 passed last week over the wishes of Asheville voters and council members. Debate leading up to the change focused on geography and party.

But Asheville is now grappling with some of its most contentious issues on race in decades, including fallout from the police beating of an unarmed black pedestrian and a historic push to help lift a shrinking and struggling black population in a fast gentrifying city.

Smith and Councilman Keith Young won races under Asheville’s long-used "at-large" system, where each council member is elected citywide.

Their victories came in a city with only a 12 percent African-American population. Both relied on six precincts with the highest numbers of black voters — precincts that will be set apart and divided under SB813.

General Assembly Republicans come to the argument with a key ruling against them after a 2016 U.S. Fourth-Circuit Appeals Court said the state’s voter ID law discriminated against black people “with almost surgical precision.”

Drawing district lines to dilute black votes has long been held illegal, but a recent Supreme Court decision about North Carolina’s political boundaries leaves the door open for such “gerrymandering” if it’s for partisan, but not racial, advantage.

Republican senator says he didn’t look to race

SB813’s sponsor, Sen. Chuck Edwards, called claims that race was a factor in the council maps “maliciously antagonistic.”

"Any claim that race was considered is a blatant and conscious misrepresentation," said Edwards, who is white and whose Senate district is based in Henderson County but also covers a piece of South Asheville.

Two people who closely follow local election issues — Ernie Thurston, who runs a targeted political mailing business, and Blake Esselstyn, a Geographic Information System consultant — say minority candidates could face a harder path under the district system.

But it’s also hard to know because of apparent flaws in numbers presented by state line drawers and also because of what self-described “map geek” Esselstyn calls a lack of “basic demographic data.”

“Our understanding of these districts would be much more complete if the process had been transparent,” said Esselstyn, a former city planner who is now a private consultant.

Edwards said General Assembly staff drew the district boundaries “under my direction and guidance.”

GOP forces districts, wants political change

Since legislators’ first attempt to force Asheville into districts in 2016, Republicans’ argument has been to diversify the council whose members tended to come from the north of the city. A later argument included the desire to add conservative voices to the all-liberal council.

The geographic argument held less sway after Vijay Kapoor of South Asheville joined the council in 2017 as the top vote-getter. The city’s heavily Progressive demographics, meanwhile, now appear to preclude the creation of any Republican district.

The new law requires Asheville be divided into five districts with a council member elected from each beginning in 2020. The mayor and one council member will remain elected at-large.

SB813 also does away with a primary, meaning there will be only one round of balloting — and it moves the election from odd-numbered years to even years when presidential, congressional and other races happen.

The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and largely along party lines in the House.

That came despite wide opposition from city residents, who voted 75 percent to 25 percent against districts in a November referendum.

All seven council members opposed the change, as did three of five state legislators representing parts of Asheville. Democratic Sen. Terry Van Duyn of Biltmore Forest joined Edwards in support of the law.

Changes to local government districts played out differently around the country decades ago.

Role of districts in electing black candidates

A major groundswell happened from 1970-1980, when referendums were held in cities nationwide over whether to change to districts from at-large systems.

Savannah, San Jose, San Antonio and Charlotte were among 45 cities of more than 100,000 that raised the question to voters, according to North Carolina State University political science professor Phung Nguyen and National Civic Review writer Alva Stewart, who penned a piece in 1983 about the change in Greensboro a year earlier.

Greensboro had relied on an at-large system for more than four decades.

"However, considerable pressure was generated for some form of district setup to make the council more representative of all socio-economic groups in the city, particularly blacks and lower-income whites, and allow all segments of the population to identify more closely with city government," Stewart and Nguyen wrote in the National Civic Review, a journal focused on issues facing cities.

Asheville African Americans elected without districts

Asheville was facing a different set of dynamics during that time. It was a smaller city, with fewer than 60,000 people in 1970. The African-American population, while not large, was proportionally bigger than today at 18 percent.

With the support of many white voters, the city in 1969 elected its first black council member of the modern era. African Americans continued to serve on the council for 45 years with the exception of gaps in 1973-1975, 1995-1997 and 2013-2015.

In 2017, Smith’s election made it the second time two African Americans were seated on the council.

Of the city’s 41 precincts, the six with the highest number of black voters played central roles in helping Smith and Young win election, according to an analysis by the Citizen Times.

Known sometimes by their polling places, the precincts are: the Grant Center and surrounding Southside area; Montford, which includes Hillcrest; the Shiloh Center; Faith Tabernacle Christian Center in the northern part of the Shiloh neighborhood; the Senior Opportunity Center downtown; and Stephens Lee Recreation Center.

In 2015, Young surprised many by becoming the top vote-getter in a six-candidate contest. In doing so, he won five of the six precincts, coming in second in Montford by only two votes.

Two years later, Smith won all six precincts and secured a spot on the council with a second-place finish.

How districts will affect the precincts

The new district system will carve up those precincts, putting Southside, Montford, the downtown Senior Opportunity Center and Stephens Lee into District 2. Young lives in that district along with fellow councilman Brian Haynes, who is white and whose house is in the River Arts District.

The southern part of Shiloh along with part of the neighborhood’s northern precinct will go into District 5, the long, dangling area that stretches to Asheville’s southern border, now home to Kapoor.

The remaining part of the northern Shiloh precinct will be in District 4, where Smith lives.

Because of a large number of shifting variables, including the change in election year, loss of a primary and needing fewer votes to win, it’s not clear what Young’s chances would be, even with access to four of the precincts.

Young would have “a fighting chance," said Thurston, who runs Meda Corporation, a company that does targeted mailing lists for political candidates. But it might be hard to call him the favorite, “if two popular incumbent council members such as Keith Young and Brian Haynes are pitted against each other," Thurston said.

For Smith, it will be tough being separated from nearly all the precincts, but she still might have a “good chance" as the incumbent, Thurston said.

In general, Smith said one result will be to “make it harder for these community members to have their concerns addressed."

“It’s completely undemocratic,” the councilwoman said.

For Young, the loss of a second black council member has the potential to weaken support for his proposals, several of which have recently become realities. Those include the creation of a city office of equity and council support to limit police search powers.

“The General Assembly has made sure these maps are so splintered that the African-American voting bloc will be completely wiped out,” he said. “The voices and people that I represent on council will likely be voiceless due to these actions.”

Edwards said he had gotten black residents’ support for changing the system, an argument that he raised for the first time.

It came from “different organized groups from the African-American community” who approached him about switching to districts, he said.

Asked which individuals or groups he meant, Edwards declined to answer, saying most people who came to him “seemed to want to remain anonymous for fear of repercussion.”

Pointing to the history of districts helping nonwhite candidates in other cities, Edwards said, “I am confident that the voice of minorities will be much stronger with these districts in place.”

More on the Asheville council:

Asheville’s top African-American precincts

10.1 Grant Center: 1,681 registered voters - 881 black voters

2.1 Montford: 3,320 voters - 713 black voters

8.2 Shiloh Center: 2,533 voters - 652 black voters

8.3 Faith Tabernacle: 1,636 voters - 591 black voters

11.1 Senior Opportunity Center: 1,817 voters - 461 black voters

1.1 Stephens Lee: 2,049 voters - 431 black voters

Source: Buncombe County Election Services, March 26, 2017

What Asheville elected officials said about the effect of SB813 on the city's African-American voters. The GOP-majority General Assembly passed the state law last week, splitting the liberal Asheville City Council into voting districts against the will of most city voters.

City Councilwoman Sheneika Smith:

As one of two current African-American members on Asheville City Council, I find this recent attempt by Republicans in Raleigh to gerrymander our local elections to be scandalous, especially in light of the recent gains our community has made in beginning to address a history of racial inequity.

It's obvious, from the way these district maps are surgically drawn, it will dilute the black vote especially and make it harder for these community members to have their concerns addressed. Its completely undemocratic.

City Councilman Keith Young:

It's very clear the black population’s vote in Asheville has been beheaded with the sword of the General Assembly.

For the first time in 25 years we have two black council members, finishing first with me in 2015, and second in 2017 with Sheneika respectively. Our shrinking demographic somehow found a way to claw back from the brink of political extinction here. Since then, we have our first black (county) commissioner, and our first black major party candidate for sheriff, two black councilmembers and more African Americans jumping in local races and serving on boards than any other time I can remember.

All this during a time when our country faces probably its most contentious racial issues since the civil rights movement. There's no coincidence that our General Assembly's disdain for everything progressive or Democrat would lead them to these actions in the name of diversity just not racial diversity. Black folks are used as political pawns in the battle between conservatism and liberalism.

Our allegiances have been traditionally to the Democratic Party since LBJ's actions, but that blind allegiance to either political party may not serve our best interest in this country's future moving forward.

The General Assembly has made sure these maps are so splintered that the African-American voting bloc will be completely wiped out, in the second-fastest growing gentrified city in the country. The voices and people that I represent on council will likely be voiceless due to these actions.

It's safe to say that if you are poor, black, LGBTQ, homeless or disadvantaged in anyway you have a voice for now, however, in the years to come your fate may lay with others whom may only have empathy to offer, rather than tangible change and progress on social justice issues, equity and equality.

Sen. Chuck Edward, R-Hendersonville:

1. General assembly staff drew the maps under my direction and guidance.

2. Race was not considered in any way when drawing the city council districts. Any claim that race was considered is a blatant and conscious misrepresentation, baseless in fact, maliciously antagonistic, and appears to have only been coined from headlines that one may have read someplace else and in some other action. The districts that I submitted in SB813 were approved by every member of the Senate, and that included all Democrats and Republicans as well as many members of minority ethnicity.

The politically charged phrase "diluted vote" was developed to describe what might happen if a particular population was shifted from one district to another. That is not the case in the Asheville city districts where we are converting from an at-large system to a districted system. To the contrary, any minority voice is amplified when we look at the logic that that when a minority population enmass is concentrated in 2-3 districts it then has a greater chance to elect someone with similar interests than in at at-large system. That has been the basis for many NAACP lawsuits filed around the country in order to get districted representation.