« There's a Bounce | Main | Special Place in Hell »
January 21, 2006
Community of Interest
We heard a lot from Republicans about "Communities of interest" back in the good old days. Well, we know they don't give a crap about that as they rush through the legislature a redistricting plan that purposefully splits Athens/Clarke County, probably a political jurisdiction that is itself a community of interest if there ever was one.
Anyway, Athens/Clarke is currently in a district with a portion of Madison County as well as the entirety of Oconee and Oglethorpe counties. The Republicans propose to splice Clarke, drop Oconee (and Madison's portion) and add a part of Walton.
But the Census Bureau's non-partisan analysis of employment might beg to differ.. I thought I'd look at a fairly simple metric -- what percentage of a county's residents work in Clarke County? Since the biggest employer in the county/region is UGA, the community of interest in question here, I thought that might make for some interesting reading.
Well, here it goes: A whopping 81% of Clarke County residents (who are employed) work in Clarke County. That is by far the highest percentage of any county in the state, and that is to be expected. Coming in at #2 is Oglethorpe -- 57% of Oglethorpe's workers drive to Clarke each day. #3 is Oconee with 52% and #4 is Madison with 49%.
No other county even approaches those percentages, Jackson County, the 5th highest county in percentage of employees who work in Clarke, is way down at 16% while only 3% of Walton's citizens call Clarke county home during the daily grind.
What does this data tell us, well it tells us that the current Senate District 46, centered around Clarke County, also includes fully the next two counties where the largest percentage of citizens work in Clarke. And then when they needed a little more population they chose a part of Madison that touches Clarke, where I bet a high percentage of citizens work in Clarke.
It seems that the current district, therefore is just fine. But Ralph Hudgens wants to make Madison County whole. I'd argue that keeping a county whole is probably more important than grouping together counties based on where people work. But why oh why would you slice up Clarke, remove Oglethorpe and add Walton when there is a much easier and much less obtrusive way to do it?
Maybe it was because all along when Republicans said they cared about communities of interest it was just meaningless partisan politics. They've got a chance to do right next week. I'm not holding my breath.
Posted by Chris at January 21, 2006 11:43 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)