Judge meets with lawyers on Nevada redistricting plan
CARSON CITY -- District Judge James Todd Russell met Wednesday with Republican and Democratic lawyers, but set no date for oral arguments on how to redistrict legislative and congressional seats.
Russell will hold another meeting with lawyers on July 12. At that time, he will set a briefing schedule and a date for a formal hearing on how redistricting should be handled.
During the legislative session, Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval twice vetoed Democratic proposals to redistrict legislative and congressional districts to reflect population changes shown by the 2010 Census. Districts are required to be as equal in population as possible.
In both vetoes, Sandoval contended the Democrats' plans would have diluted the voting strength of Hispanics, which make up 26 percent of the state population. He also said one of the four congressional districts should contain a majority Hispanic population.
But all 10 Hispanic legislators are Democrats and they voted for the Democratic redistricting plan. Their contention is most Hispanic voters are Democrats and a Hispanic does not need to live in a Hispanic majority district to win. Sandoval is the state's first Hispanic governor.
In passing the redistricting bills along party-line votes, Democrats gave scant attention to Republican redistricting plans. The Republican proposal called for one Hispanic majority congressional district, four Hispanic majority state Senate districts and eight Hispanic majority Assembly districts.
Because of the impasse, Republicans and Democrats did not even work on a compromise plan in the final days of the session, which adjourned June 7.
Expecting that no compromise would be reached, Democratic lawyers in February filed litigation in District Court in Carson City asking for a judge to draw fair district boundaries. Republicans then countersued.
Judge Russell, the former chairman of the state Ethics Commission, is the son of Charles Russell, a two-term Republican governor in the 1950s.
