Friday, March 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024
59° F Dallas, TX
Advertisement
Publications

Naked City Brown Power

In the Dallas City Council redistricting squabbles to come, Hispanics will hold the trump cards, due to black flight to the suburbs and white growth in the north.
By Tom Pauken |

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DECADE makes. Ten years ago, a political battle royal raged in Dallas as a narrow majority of voters approved a 10-4-1 system of government ( 10 single member districts, four at-large, and the mayor elected at-large). It’s still fresh in my mind, because I was right in the thick of it. Under pressure from Federal Judge Jerry Buchmeyer, the Dallas City Council threw out the 10-4-1 system before it ever went into effect and replaced it with 14 single-member seats with only the mayor elected at-large. Judge Buchmeyer then oversaw the drawing of district lines for the new system, with eight of the 14council districts specifically designed to elect minority council members. It wasn’t easy to draw eight minority districts out of 14-Anglos were still in the majority at the time, and Dallas already was an integrated city. To complicate things further. Hispanics, more so than African-Americans, were scattered in neighborhoods throughout the city. But, by using crazy-quilt district lines that snaked in and out of various neighborhoods to pick up minority population, the judge got what he wanted-five African-American districts, two Hispanic districts, and one with a black/Hispanic majority. The remaining six districts were situated in the predominately white areas of North Dallas, Lake Highlands, East Dallas, and Uptown.

Now all of that is about to change, as council members prepare to redraw district lines for the 2001 elections, based on the 2000 census ligures.

The city’s demographics have confounded all expectations. A decade ago the urban center of major American cities were supposed to become almost completely minority. Instead, ’’black flight” from the Dallas public schools has caused a significant exodus of middle-class blacks from the traditional minority neighborhoods in South Dallas and Oak Cliff into either the southern suburbs of Lancaster, DeSoto, Dun-canville, and Cedar Hill or into integrated neighborhoods north of the Trinity. Meanwhile, Hispanics have moved in behind them in increasing numbers in what formerly were predominantly black neighborhoods in Pleasant Grove, Oak Cliff, and pockets of old East Dallas. At the same time, while the city has grown by approximately 100,000 since 1990, when Dallas had 1,006,877 residents, most of that population growth-surprisingly-has been north. For example. District 12 in Far North Dallas, represented by Sandy Grayson, has an estimated 100,000 residents compared to 74,713 people in 1990. Valetta Lill’s district in Uptown and Oak Lawn has grown from 75,490 to more than 85,000. Contrast those numhers with the figures in District 5, a Pleasant Grove/Oak Cliff district currently represented by attorney Don Hill, the leader of the African-American bloc of council members, where the population had declined slightly by 1998 from 71,019 to less than 70,000. Moreover, as Hill acknowledges, his district’s ethnic makeup has changed, particularly in the Pleasant Grove portion where there are more Hispanics and fewer blacks. For example, as of May 2000, Silberstein elementary reported 849 Hispanics and 51 blacks in its school. At J. Adams, also in Pleasant Grove, there were 721 Hispanics and 161 blacks.

That’s why Joe May, who tracks closely the demographic changes in Dallas, believes that Hispanics are poised to take over the leadership role on the Dallas City Council from African-Americans once new lines are drawn in 2001. May thinks Hispanics will be entitled to a minimum of four council seats, two more than at present, with a reasonable possibility of garnering a fifth seat to match the number of seats currently occupied by African-American council members.

According to May. the explosive Hispanic growth in the city combined with the black migration to the suburbs will result in Hispanic numbers surpassing blacks for the first time. To add to the demographic surge. more Hispanics are being bom in Dallas than any other race, and there has been a dramatic shift in the elementary school population from black to Hispanic in DISD. While Mayor Ron Kirk agrees that there has been significant Hispanic growth in Dallas over the past decade, he disputes the conclusion that May draws from that data, pointing out that “a lot of Latino growth is composed of non-citizens” who are illegals and can’t vote. Kirk believes that three Hispanic seats are justified, but that four “may be a bit ambitious.” May, on the other hand, envisions as many as five Hispanic districts beginning with one in Pleasant Grove, where Hispanics are now the largest ethnic group, and including two districts in Oak Cliff, one in East Dallas, and one West/ Northwest Dallas district.



M AY SEES THE PLEASANT GROVE AREA as a key factor in this pending shift of power on the council. Under the current racially gerrymandered system, four African-American districts take portions of Pleasant Grove neighborhoods to gel to the minimum population numbers required to have black majorities. If Pleasant Grove were restored to a compact district again, May believes that it would become a Hispanic district and that the four African-American districts would have to be combined to meet the minimum population requirements for each district. Redisricting expert Ed Blum points out that the courts have held that there cannot be a population deviance by district for municipal or legislative seats of more than 5 percent. Thus, hypothetically, if the new districts must average 78,000 people each, it is hard to fathom how the live African-American districts can be maintained, since the estimated population of their current districts averages approximately 70,000 per district, according to the most current data.

Try telling that to attorney Don Hill, an influential force on the council who has helped Ron Kirk become the most powerful Dallas mayor since the days when Bob Folsom ran the city. Hill makes sure the African-American council members stay “hitched” when Kirk needs them on key issues. Hill unhesitatingly told me that he is determined to maintain the five African-American seats on the council after new lines are drawn next year. Since Hispanics appear just as committed to get a minimum of four seats under the new lines, something has to give. The numbers just don’t add up to being able to satisfy both groups’ demands.

The looming Hispanic/black showdown doesn’t even take into account the fact that the growth in the city since the last census has been north of the Trinity. By my calculation, the six northern districts in the city have almost as many residents as the people who live in the eight southern districts, a disparity that will not withstand court scrutiny. Since a number of the council members want to draw new compact districts which keep neighborhoods intact ( unlike the current districts), it is hard to envision any scenario in which there are more than seven “safe” minority scats under the new lines. This may turn out to be good news. Dallas may be moving into a political era in which coalition politics plays more of a necessary role than race-based approach that has seem to dominate our system over the past decade.

Two factors could change the dynamics of the 2001 elections. One would he if the council were to move forward with the scheduled May elections based on 1990 census figures. Many on the council want to delay the election until November of next year so that the new census figures, which will be available in April, can he used to draw the district lines. If the council doesn’t delay the May elections, expect a lawsuit to be filed to postpone the elections until later in the year. The sec-ond issue is the possibility, suggested to me by Councilwoman Grayson, that the council may seek to expand the number of council seats so that African-Americans could maintain their five seals and Hispanics can get added representation. That’s the kind of last-gasp attempt whites were accused of back when the at-large system was overruled. And even if it is somehow successful, it won’t change the trend-or the political dynamic in Dallas of a profound shift in ethnic power that is about to unfold.

Related Articles

Local News

Leading Off (3/29/24)

Looks like we have a beautiful Easter weekend ahead.
Image
Business

Alternative Wealth Partners Launches $150 Million Investment Fund

Plus: Parking software and solutions company ParkHub merges with U.K.-based JustPark, Spark Spot acquires land for EV charging station in Carrollton, and more.
Image
Arts & Entertainment

Here’s Who Is Coming to Dallas This Weekend: March 28-31

It's going to be a gorgeous weekend. Pencil in some live music in between those egg hunts and brunches.
Advertisement