Who will draw ward boundaries for Minneapolis?

Lyall Schwarzkopf helped redraw the ward boundaries for Minneapolis in 2002 as a Republican appointee. He remembers the bad taste it left.

"Your job is to represent that group," he said. "You fight for everything you can get."

The horsetrading among political party representatives who dominated the redistricting commission turned him off.

That's why Schwarzkopf is supporting a charter amendment that will go before city voters on Nov. 2. It would give the job of drawing boundaries for the city's 13 wards to the Charter Commission, advised by an expanded group. They'd also draw Park Board, and possibly school board, district boundaries.

The 2010 census will require all political boundaries to be redrawn to equalize representation by population. Called redistricting, the process affects voters by determining which other voters they're grouped with in choosing who will represent them.

The proposed amendment grew out of dissatisfaction with the 2002 process.

The Minneapolis map was drawn primarily by political insiders. DFLers, Republicans and the Independence Party each got two members, based on how they polled statewide. Neither Republicans nor Independence Party members hold a City Council seat in Minneapolis. The Green Party, which had elected two council members, got only one seat on the redistricting commission.

The 2002 ward boundaries put both Green council incumbents in wards with incumbent DFLers, who defeated them. Some minority representatives were unhappy with the new boundaries. Some still gripe that the Phillips community was split into four wards.

The redistricting map was challenged in court, but was sustained by a judge. By contrast St. Paul's Charter Commission drew a map that drew no legal challenge.

The call for a fix accelerated when Gordon and nine council DFLers urged the Charter Commission to do the redistricting. Members of all four parties now sit on that commission, not by formula but from appointments by the chief district court judge.

Although he's a longtime Republican, Schwarzkopf believes he could set aside party bias and do a fair job of redistricting as a member of the Charter Commission. As a commissioner, he said, "I represent the good of the whole city."

But because it's an all-white body normally comprised of what Chairman Barry Clegg calls "charter nerds," the Charter Commission proposed that it get advice from nine advisory members for redistricting.

No organized opposition to the proposal has emerged to date. But opponents tend to question whether a judge-appointed body would be less partisan in drawing lines. One opponent, Carol Becker, goes further. She argues that the Charter Commission has become too activist in placing charter proposals up for a vote without a petition from voters or a formal request by the council. She cited last year's proposal to abolish the Board of Estimate and Taxation, on which she sits. It failed.

The Charter Commission is trying to reassure voters that it would seek racial, geographic and other forms of diversity in appointing its advisory group on redistricting, and by providing multiple chances for public comment on maps. Common Cause Minnesota is taking a neutral stance on the proposed amendment.