Memphis City Council member Michalyn Easter-Thomas will try a fourth time to form a committee on redrawing city council district lines that could include more than moving some precincts around.

Easter-Thomas said Monday, Aug. 29, she intends to propose the committee of citizens as well as council members at the Sept.13 council session.

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The move would signal a reopening of the decision on new lines for city council district 4 that the council approved earlier this month for the Nov. 8 special election. 

Although the District 4 seat is the only council race on that ballot, the changes of two precincts to the district has affected other council boundaries. And all 13 council seats will be on the ballot in the October 2023 city elections.

Easter-Thomas, as well as council chairman Martavius Jones, signaled before and after the Aug. 23 council vote that they want a more comprehensive review of not only the council district lines, but the council structure between now and the city elections.

“Establishing a committee not only signals to the public that the council as a whole values transparency but that we also want to ensure due diligence for the process from start to finish,” Easter-Thomas said.

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The Shelby County Commission used a similar committee in redrawing its district lines last year.

What initially looked like a redrawing with shifts of a few precincts became a larger set of changes that established a Cordova district for an area that had been split among four commission districts before and was the area that saw the most significant growth in the county between the 2010 U.S. Census and the 2020 Census.

The move for a city redistricting committee has support from the Memphis Branch NAACP, UpTheVote901, Stand for Children, A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Shelby County Voter Alliance.

Easter-Thomas cast the only vote against the new district lines for the special election, saying council attorney Allan Wade hadn’t consulted with all 13 council members and specifically had not consulted her on changes affecting her single-member district.

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“I was definitely surprised when we had our maps done rather quickly for the third vote,” she said.

Cardell Orrin, of Stand for Children, said he is “concerned” about the vote by the council on a redistricting map it saw earlier in the day that the final vote was taken on the redistricting ordinance.

“We’re concerned about the ability for the public to be represented for the next 10 years,” he said. “Maybe we should have 13 single member (council) districts. Maybe we should have super districts that better represent the full city and are not gerrymandered as they are now.”

Orrin also said if the council doesn’t create a redistricting committee of citizens, he and the other organizations will come up with their own maps or restructuring of the council and lobby council members to consider them.

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Ian Randolph of the Shelby County Voter Alliances said there will be some direct mail pieces to citizens to get them involved in the specific issues of redistricting that could include restructuring the council.

Rev. Earle Fisher of UpTheVote901 said there will be calls to restructure the council and eliminate the super districts, as well as a push for a return to the runoff provision for all council races and the Memphis mayoral election.

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“I know some people in the community who will be advocating for it to be on the table,” he said of abolishing super districts. “When you start talking about adequate representation and you look at the history of super districts and what they have meant, I think it signifies a lack of representation.”

Fisher also favors the return of the runoff provision as an alternative to partisan city primary elections. A ballot question proposed for the Nov. 8 ballot that on that question was defeated by the council.

“It’s not ideal. We have to deal with the pragmatic,” he said of the trade-off of lower turnout in runoff elections.