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ATHENS NEWS AND VIEWS
Raise Your Voice: The Athens-Clarke County
Democrats and Republicans will jointly spon
sor a public "town hall" meeting on redis
tricting this Sunday, Aug. 14 from 5:30-7:30
p.m. The meeting is the brainchild of Regina
Quick and Shaye Gambrell, the Republican
and Democratic representatives, respectively,
on the committee appointed by Mayor Nancy
Denson to produce a county district map for
approval by the ACC Commission.
But as faithful readers know, the com
mission's approval is not the final word in
the process—far from it, in this unusual
instance. Rep. Doug McKillip says he's plan
ning to attend the town hall, which means
he'll have a chance to make his case to the
public for whatever plans he has for the elec
toral map. Those, according to Blake Aued's
Aug. 7 Athens Banner-Herald article, will
include the elimination of the county's two
superdistricts—which, in the same article,
Commissioner Harry Sims
says will not be a feature
of any map that comes out
of the local reapportion
ment committee, which
he chairs. Assuming Sims
is correct, that means
that if McKillip intends
to submit a map that
eliminates superdistricts
to his colleagues in the
Legislature, he will in all
likelihood be asking them
to approve a local map
not recommended by
the local government-
changing the local charter
in the process. Though
the General Assembly has
always had the power to
do that, it's never used—
but there's a first time for
everything, right?
McKillip hit the Athens airwaves last week
with an appearance on Tim Bryant's news
talk show, in which he tried to allay citizens'
fears instilled by the "liberal media" (which
apparently includes not only Flagpole, but the
passionately centrist Banner-Herald, as well)
that he might be handling local redistrict
ing by himself—then went on o explain why
he should. And guess what: it's to increase
African-American representation on the com
mission! He also said he only wants to pro
vide the public with additional "options" to
the ones produced by the local government's
normal process—options on which he and his
fellow Republicans in the Legislature will, of
course, have the final say, no matter what
"the public" prefers. The task of drawing those
alternative maps, McKillip announced, will be
undertaken with the assistance of his consul
tant Robert "Bo" Mabry, whose history—like
McKillip's, as a Democrat, until recently—is
as a strategist in bare-knuckled political
campaigns.
McKillip also took the opportunity of his
appearance on Bryant's show to upbraid your
own true Dope for "coyly" suggesting (on the
same show a week earlier) that there may be
a personal motive for his intentions regarding
the superdistricts—a suggestion he called
"utter absurdity." Fine: strained relation
ships with commissioners probably account
for little to none of McKillip's motivation in
all this, and it was unwise to call attention to
them when he has so many better reasons to
insert himself into the redistricting process of
the Athens-Clarke County government. When
Bryant asked him about the best one—that
he could benefit politically from being seen
as a crusading conservative in the progressive
bastion of ACC, especially as his own legisla
tive district is being redrawn by the state
Republicans—he ignored the question.
But if you really want "coy," check out
Mabry's recent Facebook posts (if he hasn't
"blocked" you for asking him direct questions
about them), in which he flippantly tweaks
the current superdistrict commissioners about
McKillip's redrawing project, to which Mabry
has now been handed the keys. And if you're
looking for "utter absurdity," look no further
than the spectacle of a newly Republican
legislator, elected as a Democrat in a strongly
Democratic district, whose immediate politi
cal future depends on the redrawing of that
district specifically to erase its Democratic
majority without harming the reelection pros
pects of adjacent Republican representatives,
insisting that his unprecedented interest in
local electoral politics is purely motivated by
a heroic thirst for "fairness."
Again: McKillip has already disenfranchised
the Democratic voters who elected him by
switching parties, is in the process of making
that disenfranchisement permanent by hav
ing his district redrawn to favor Republicans,
and would like you to believe that the only
people around here getting cheated out of
"fair" representation are local conservatives.
As Aued has pointed out on his ABH blog,
the ACC Commission district lines do not pre
vent conservatives from being elected, nor
are all the districts currently represented by
ideologically like-minded liberals, as McKillip
disingenuously claims. His scheme isn't to
correct partisan gerrymandering; it's to create
it. And the assertion that local district lines
need to be radically redrawn to increase local
African-American representation—by someone
who just switched to a party whose electoral
strategy routinely includes barely disguised
attempts to suppress minority voting power—
would be laughable if it weren't so depressing.
Doug McKillip has shown himself to be as
brazenly opportunistic a politician as can be
imagined, and he is, right here and now, mak
ing a play for increased po'itical power—with
Athens' electoral self-determination as the
price. "It's not personal!" he says. You'll have
to forgive us, Doug, if we take it that way.
Dave Marr news@flagpole.com
Athens’ local electoral map is being redrawn, and Rep. Doug McKillip wants
big changes.
4 FLAGPOLE.COM • AUGUST 10, 2011
