Friday, February 24, 2012
11:39 AM
Defense begins in redistricting suit
The defense called Peter A. Morrison, a demographer with expertise in both redistricting and the measurement of minority presence in neighborhoods, who attacked the opinion of the plaintiff's expert that Latino voting rights were diluted under the new redistricting plan.
Plaintiff expert Kenneth Mayer used a short list of Hispanic surnames in his analysis that Morrison called "distorted," "erroneous" and could have been corrected by using a larger list of names. The actual number of Hispanics in two new districts would be far greater than Mayer said.
"It undermines all his conclusions," Morrison said.
In response to questions by Peter Earle, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Morrison acknowledged that the new Assembly district 8 could not achieve an effective voting majority until Nov. 2018; in Assembly district 9, an Hispanic majority was not envisioned until some time past 2020, he said.
Morrison is a private consultant who worked for the Rand Corp. and the University of Pennsylvania in the past.
Next up Ronald Gaddie, a political science professor at Tulane University who has wroked on redistricting.
-- By Marie Rohde
Labels: Redistricting trial
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