Prince George’s redistricting proposal threatens low-income and urban communities

This article is the second in a three-part series to help demystify the redistricting process in Prince George’s County and explain the impact it can have on our lives.

On Wednesday (Sept. 1), the Prince George’s County redistricting commission is scheduled to submit a map of proposed county council districts based on 2020 census results to the County Council. Redistricting, or the procedure of redrawing legislative district lines, happens every 10 years, at the federal, state, and local level, following the national census.

Each jurisdiction has its own unique rules and processes. The way that district lines are drawn can determine who wields power and who has a say in the legislative process. The proposed map for Prince George’s, however, replicates serious flaws in the current county council district map that harm low-income communities and increase the political power of the least-dense, least-urban parts of the county.

As two Prince George’s residents, we thought it would be helpful to do a series explaining the districting process, and how it affects all of us. Our first article looked at the redistricting process on the state and local levels. Now let’s dive into the proposed 2021 map for Prince George’s.

The 2021 redistricting commission’s proposed districts disadvantage low-income populations

As a result of the delay in final census numbers, the commission developed preliminary redistricting proposals in June based on estimates of population changes. A slightly modified version of these proposals based on actual census numbers was then presented at a public meeting on August 16.

The new districts are extremely similar to the 2010 districts, with only four precincts moved. One precinct in the southwesternmost portion of District 1 was moved to District 2, the easternmost precinct of District 3 was moved to District 4, and two precincts consisting of most of the city of District Heights were moved from District 6 to District 7, which encompasses the municipalities of Capitol Heights, Seat Pleasant, and Fairmount Heights, among other territory.

The redistricting commission’s proposed county council districts, based on 2020 census data. Map drawn by D.W. Rowlands using the Dave’s Redistricting web tool.

Unfortunately, this proposal replicates the problems with the current county council districts: several districts are quite oddly shaped, and nearby communities that share common interests are not particularly well-represented. It does, like the current map, largely keep municipalities within the same district — except for College Park, where city council members asked that the city remain split between Districts 1 and 3 during the 2011 redistricting cycle—but it ignores census-designated place boundaries.

One potentially legally significant consideration is the representation of people of color and non-English speakers, as the federal Voting Rights Act requires that districts not be drawn in ways that limit their representation. Black Prince Georgeans are roughly two-thirds of the county’s voting-age population, and they are a majority of the voting-age population in six of the nine districts (all but Districts 1, 2, and 3).

Meanwhile, while Latinx Prince Georgeans are 18% of the voting age population, there is no district where they are a majority. District 2 (which encompasses Langley Park, Chillum, Hyattsville, and surrounding areas along the DC line) comes close, with 49.5% of the voting-age population of Latinx origin. However, the fraction of the Latinx citizen voting-age population is much lower, according to US Census Bureau estimates.

In any case, the fact that this district has a Latinx plurality and has elected Latinx councilmembers in the last five election cycles with essentially the same borders means that it would likely pass muster under the Voting Rights Act.

A more significant problem with the way the proposed districts are drawn is that they largely split up the county’s lower-income population. Prince George’s County is incredibly diverse, with both some of the region’s lowest-income census tracts inside the Beltway and some of the nation’s highest-income majority-Black census tracts outside the Beltway. Since the 2020 census redistricting data that was released earlier this month does not include income data, we approximated each of the proposed districts with 2019 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimate data.

The central and southern portions of inner-Beltway Prince George’s County (south of US Route 50) are divided into four districts: Districts 5, 6, 7, and 8, although this area has a population of roughly 215,000 residents — enough to make two ideally-sized districts of 107,500 residents each. The median resident of this area lives in a block group with a median household income of $65,000 per year — lower than roughly three-quarters of the block groups in the county — and 80% of the block groups in this portion of the county have median household incomes below the county’s median household income of $85,000.

Despite the fact that this is an area of concentrated low incomes, only one of the four districts that cover this area — District 7 — has a median block group with a household income below $75,000 per year, while two — District 6 and District 8 — have median block groups with household incomes well above the $85,000 median household income for the county.

This type of blunting of low-income inner-Beltway populations can be highly problematic, because it can reduce the voice, influence, and perspective of that demographic on the council, which can skew legislative decision-making in a way that does not represent the interests of the whole county.

The proposed districts are also bad for urbanism

The residents living inside the Beltway comprise about 43% of the county’s population. That is equivalent to almost four ideal districts of 107,500 residents. However, the commission’s proposed plan divides this area into eight districts. (Only District 9 has no extension within the Beltway.) This grouping of districts is bad for urbanism and public transportation, because it does not reflect the true densities of the county’s inner-Beltway urban core.

This median resident inside the Beltway lives in a block group with a density of 7,500 residents per square mile; yet only one inner-Beltway district, District 2, reflects a population with a median resident density of 7,500 or higher. In fact, only three of the county’s nine districts — districts 2, 3 and 7 — have median residents living at population densities higher than the county median population density of 4,000 residents per square mile.

This “cracking” of high-density areas is particularly notable in the low-income areas inside the Beltway in Districts 5, 6, 7, and 8, as discussed above. The median resident of these four districts inside the Beltway lives in a block group with a density of 6,000 residents per square mile. Only District 7, with its median density of 7,000 residents per square mile, has a median density higher than the county median of 4,000 residents per square mile.

Likewise, only 45% of central and southern county inner-Beltway residents live in single-family detached housing; yet only one of the four districts — again, District 7 — has a clear majority of residents not living in single-family detached housing.

The northern portion of the county inside the Beltway has a similar, albeit less severe issue with density cracking. While District 2, which is made up of some of the most-urban parts of the county, has a median density of 11,000 residents per square mile, the other three northern districts that extend inside the Beltway — districts 1, 3, and 4 (encompassing Laurel, Bowie, Hyattsville, College Park, Greenbelt, and surrounding areas) — have median densities of 4,000, 6,500, and 3,000 residents per square mile, respectively. However, the portions of these three districts inside the Beltway, plus the outside-the-Beltway portion of the city of Greenbelt (all of which is in District 4), have the population of an ideal-sized district and a median population density of 8,000 residents per square mile

If the portion of the county inside the Beltway were divided into four more-compact districts instead of the eight districts it is split among now, it is likely that all four seats would represent areas with median densities of at least 6,000 residents per square mile, and that the two northern districts would have median densities of at least 8,000 residents per square mile: a much stronger voice for density and transit than we have today.

The 2021 plan does not equalize population among the districts

The primary purpose of redistricting after every decennial census is to ensure that legislative districts at the federal, state, and local level all comport with the “one person, one vote” requirements of the US Constitution. That principle requires that districts be equally sized, so that no one person’s voting strength is greater than anyone else’s.

To figure out what the “ideal district population” is, one takes the total population of the jurisdiction, as determined by the most recent census, and divides it by the number of districts in the legislative body. So, for the Prince George’s County Council, based on the county’s 2020 total population of 967,201, the ideal population for each of the nine council districts is 107,467 people.

Of course, it is impossible to achieve mathematical precision when drawing districts. Therefore, the Supreme Court clarified in the 1964 case Reynolds v. Sims that lawmakers must “make an honest and good faith effort to construct districts…as nearly of equal population as is practicable.” For congressional districts, the sum of the numeric deviation of the smallest and largest districts (i.e., the “maximum population deviation”) typically has to be under one percent.

However, courts allow more flexibility in drawing state and local districts. Maximum population deviations over 10% are presumptively unconstitutional, but if the maximum deviation is below 10%, the person challenging the plan must show that illegal, discriminatory, or illegitimate factors caused a greater-than-necessary deviation.

The Redistricting Commission’s proposed 2021 plan has a maximum population deviation of 6.96%. That is because they are working from a “least change” perspective of the 2011 plan, which itself had a maximum population deviation of 7.30%. But even the commission’s hired consultant, Stanford Law professor Nate Persily, concedes that a “least change” plan could easily be drawn with maximum population deviations well under 2% without splitting precincts.

In our next article, we will review a couple of alternative redistricting proposals for the Prince George’s County Council that provide better representation for the lower-income and more densely populated inner-Beltway portion of the county, and that provide more compact, contiguous, and equally populated districts, in keeping with the US Constitution and the Prince George’s County Charter.