In part 19 of this series we saw that in 1996 the voters by referendum adopted a change to the Howard County charter to have a redistricting commission create proposals for council district lines, as opposed to having this be the function solely of the council. However the council still had the power to influence the commission through its appointment of a seventh “tie-breaker” member. In this post and the next we review the council elections of 1998, which would determine the balance of power in drawing district lines after the 2000 census. ...

For those following this blog, note that I’ve changed the canonical site name from blog.hecker.org to frankhecker.com. Any links and feed URLs referencing the previous domain name will still work for the foreseeable future, but if and when you have time you may want to update your bookmark list, RSS newsreaders, and related information to reflect the new name. A little history by way of background: I was around when the Internet was first being commercialized, and I had the opportunity to register hecker.com for myself if I really wanted to. However I passed because I didn’t have a server to associate with it and I thought I needed to be running an actual server in order to register the name (though I’m not sure that was the case even then). When I finally got around to having a personal server in the late 1990s I found that hecker.com had already been taken by a company that registered thousands of surname domains so that they could offer a shared domain service in which multiple people could have their own personal subdomains under a top-level domain: jane.smith.com, john.smith.com, and so on. So I settled on the next best thing and registered hecker.org instead for use as my primary domain, at the same time registering frankhecker.com (as well as the .org and .net variants) to prevent anyone else from getting it. ...

For some time now I’ve been posting links I find interesting at hecker.tumblr.com. This is mainly for personal reference, but I thought it might be useful to collect those every week or two in case anyone else is interested. Some of these inspire blog posts, others I use as reference for various projects. This week was a political philosophy week. “Occupy Wall Street, Social Unrest and Income Inequality” This is an interesting riff on John Rawls and the “veil of ignorance,” starting with the following assumption that “[absent] a policy of income redistribution, capitalism plus stability leads to income disparities.” I wrote a blog post based on this. ...

How can Maryland promote job growth and the well-being of its citizens as the economy languishes and Federal spending shows every sign of declining, never to rise again? Should Maryland seek to model itself on its next-door rival, Virginia, or even on Texas and other states in the south touting themselves as “business-friendly” destinations? Or is there another way to grow Maryland and make it a better place to live and work, one that takes into account Maryland’s own characteristics and doesn’t try to make it into something it’s not and never could be? ...

Is the US too stable for its own good? You’d think that stability would be a welcome thing, especially for a country in the midst of an economic downturn making life unstable for millions of Americans. But in a recent post, “Occupy Wall Street, Social Unrest and Income Inequality” (which I found via the Twitter feed of venture capitalist Paul Kedrosky), SEC official (and former financial industry insider) Rick Bookstaber makes the case that stability isn’t an unalloyed blessing when it comes to a capitalist society. I was interested in posting on this general topic, and commenting on Bookstaber’s post is as good a way to begin doing that as any. ...

In part 18 of this series Republicans overcame the disadvantage imposed on them by the recently-adopted redistricting plan and gained a majority on the county council in the general election of 1994. We now review how the council tried to avoid a replay of the redistricting battle of 1991–1993: July 1996. The Howard County Council considers a proposal to establish a separate commission to devise council redistricting plans, as opposed to having the council create plans itself. The proposal envisions a seven-member commission with three members appointed by the Democratic and Republican Central Committees and a “tie-breaker” member appointed by the council. The commission’s plan would be presented to the council, which could adopt it as-is, modify it, or create a new plan; however the commission plan would automatically go into effect in the event of a council stalemate. ...

In part 17 of this series the Howard County Council ended an over two-year battle by finally adopting new councilmanic district lines based on the 1990 census figures. In this post we see how the new district alignments influenced the council elections in 1994. February 1994. Howard County voter registration figures show Democrats holding a significant edge in party affiliation in four of the five new council districts: Democrats outnumber Republicans 48%–38% in District 1 (Ellicott City and Elkridge), 54%–30% in District 2 (east Columbia), 48%–35% in District 3 (southeast Columbia, Savage and North Laurel), and 54%–31% in District 4 (west Columbia). Only in District 5 (western Howard) do Republicans have a voter registration advantage, with a slim 44%–43% majority. ...

As we saw in part 16 of this series, 1992 ended with the Howard County Council still divided over how to proceed with redistricting in the wake of the ruling by Judge Cornelius Sybert, Jr., that the council could not adopt a redistricting plan as a resolution. After coming back from the end of the year vacation the council resumed its efforts to break the stalemate: January 1993. The council again divides 3–2, but with a twist this time: Republican council member Charles Feaga joins Democrats Shane Pendergrass and Paul Farragut to try to forge a compromise plan based on the original Democratic-sponsored plan approved by the council via a resolution (the one struck down by Judge Sybert) and a plan drawn up by Republican Michael Deets for the Columbia Association that was previously submitted to the council but never considered. On the losing side are Republican Darrel Drown and Democrat C. Vernon Gray. Gray simply wants to address the concerns expressed by Republican county executive Charles Ecker in his veto of the Democratic plan, while Drown objects to considering the Columbia Association plan instead of the plan submitted by Ecker (“If you want to talk compromise, talk about the Republican map”) and fears his Ellicott City district being split up, with part being joined to Elkridge. Feaga dismisses his concerns: “I did get the idea from the public testimony that Elkridge wanted to be linked to Ellicott City.” Reading the tea leaves, the Baltimore Sun predicts that Darrel Drown is “destined for the loss column” with Charles Feaga “willing to let Mr. Drown take the fall.” ...

Part 15 of this series ended with the trial about to begin that would decide whether the Howard County Council had acted illegally in passing the Democratic-sponsored redistricting plan as a resolution rather than a bill. Now it’s off to court we go: August 1992. The last day of the month is the first day of the trial in the Circuit Court of Howard County, as counsel put forth their arguments in front of Judge Cornelius Sybert, Jr. Representing the plaintiffs, Howard County Republicans David Maier and Louis Pope, are former county solicitor Thomas Lloyd and fellow former solicitor Richard J. Wilkinson, both Democrats. As for the co-defendants, representing the Board of Elections is Charles Reese, and representing the County Council are former US Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti, former Georgetown Law professor Roger Titus, and their associate Sondra Block. ...

As we concluded part 14 we’d seen a move by the Democratic council members (adopting their preferred redistricting plan as a bill), a counter-move by the Republican county executive (vetoing said bill), and a counter-counter move by the council Democrats (adopting the plan via a resolution instead). Now comes the next move:1 February 1992. Howard County Republicans, in the persons of David Maier and Louis Pope, prepare to sue the Board of Elections for accepting the Democratic redistricting plan passed by the council as a resolution (after county executive Charles Ecker vetoed it when passed as a bill). Past and present county solicitors disagree on the bill vs. resolution issue: Current solicitor Barbara Cook says a bill is required, while former solicitor Timothy Welsh had in 1985 opined that a resolution would suffice.2 ...