Valparaiso City Council member Barb Dormer to push redistricting ordinance
If approved, Domer said Valparaiso will join two other Indiana cities, Bloomington and Goshen, that have engaged their city councils with redistricting using the help of a bipartisan team of voters.
'After holding a public meeting in May to receive citizen input and gauge public support, I am excited to announce plans to move forward with introducing an ordinance to create a bipartisan citizen redistricting advisory commission for Valparaiso,' Domer, D-3, said earlier this month.
'My decision to run for City Council was spurred, in part, by my involvement with this city council's redistricting process in 2022, and I firmly believe this is a process that can, and should, be directed by voters, not politicians. I look forward to working with Mayor Costas, my fellow council members, organizations representing voters, and all others who support a voter-centric reform to create the building blocks of our council elections here in Valparaiso.'
Domer said her insistence and efforts so far 'have been praised' by Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, who helped redistricting activists in Valparaiso create a public mapping process during the 2022 round of redistricting.
'I first met Councilwoman Domer in 2021 during the state and Congressional redistricting process when she was one of the hundreds of local leaders we worked with as part of our Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission demonstration project,' Vaughn said.
'She helped organize and promote a local redistricting mapping project for Valpo council districts in 2022, which resulted in seven maps drawn by citizens, more public input than any other city in the state. It's so exciting that she used that experience as motivation to run for city council and is continuing to promote fair maps and responsible redistricting as a public official,' Vaughn said.
'I'm looking forward to continuing our work to make the city of Valparaiso the third city in the state to create a citizens' redistricting advisory commission.'
Additional information about redistricting can be found on the Valpo Redistricting page of the League of Women Voters of Porter County website, www.lwvporterco.org.
Mayor Jon Costas and the rest of the city council have yet to share their thoughts publicly about the need for redistricting.
'As a member of the League of Women Voters of Porter County, I have been involved in the redistricting process for the past several years,' Domer said.
'Taking the politicians out of the map drawing process and entrusting the residents of our community with this responsibility will likely create district maps which respect communities/neighborhoods of interest without dividing voters for political gain.'
In 2022, the city entered a contract with the law firm of a former speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives to draw the city district maps, prompting Domer to be vocally critical of the outcome.
'The city paid close to $50,000 for this service, while meanwhile residents, including myself, prior to my council election, proved we could draw the maps locally, and we drew legislative maps for free,' Domer said.
Domer said an independent redistricting commission would establish 'the redistricting procedures that are transparent, inclusive and inviting public participation.'
'At the core of this commission's mission would be for them to be able to receive public input on how residents want to see their communities drawn,' Domer said.
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The right-wing front-runners also have expressed interest in doing business with Israel, which has no diplomatic relations with Bolivia, and called for foreign private companies to invest in the country and develop its rich natural resources. After storming to office in 2006 at the start of the commodities boom, Morales, Bolivia's first Indigenous president, nationalized the nation's oil and gas industry, using the lush profits to reduce poverty, expand infrastructure and improve the lives of the rural poor. After three consecutive presidential terms, as well as a contentious bid for an unprecedented fourth in 2019 that set off popular unrest and led to his ouster, Morales has been barred from this race by Bolivia's constitutional court. His ally-turned-rival, President Luis Arce, withdrew his candidacy for the MAS on account of his plummeting popularity and nominated his senior minister, Eduardo del Castillo. 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'It's always the same, those in power live happily spending the country's money, and we suffer.' Conservative candidates say austerity needed Doria Medina and Quiroga have warned of the need for a painful fiscal adjustment, including the elimination of Bolivia's generous food and fuel subsidies, to save the nation from insolvency. Some analysts caution this risks sparking social unrest. 'A victory for either right-wing candidate could have grave repercussions for Bolivia's Indigenous and impoverished communities,' said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivian research group. 'Both candidates could bolster security forces and right-wing para-state groups, paving the way for violent crackdowns on protests expected to erupt over the foreign exploitation of lithium and drastic austerity measures.' All 130 seats in Bolivia's Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament, are up for grabs, along with 36 in the Senate, the upper house. If, as is widely expected, no one receives more than 50% of the vote, or 40% of the vote with a lead of 10 percentage points, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff on Oct. 19 for the first time since Bolivia's 1982 return to democracy.
