OMAHA, Neb. (CN) — A year after two Native American tribes sued a county where they are both located over Voting Rights Act violations, a federal judged signed off Friday on re-drawn boundaries for county supervisor districts.
The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska and nine individual members of the two tribes, said in their initial January 2023 complaint that the American Indian population in Thurston County is large and geographically compact enough to constitute a majority in at least four districts.
According to the plaintiffs, white people held five of seven Board of Supervisor seats in Thurston County, despite comprising about 36% of the county's total population and 43% of the voting age population. The 2020 Census found nearly 60% of Thurston County's population was American Indian.
Chief U.S. District Judge Robert F. Rossiter Jr., an Obama appointee, in his order, consent decree and judgment filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for Nebraska, ordered that five of the seven districts in the county will now be American Indian majority districts.
Under the order, there will be four effective Native American districts. A fifth will have only a slight majority. The tribes had argued for four effective districts — districts with at least 70% American Indian population, said the tribes' attorney Michael Carter, senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund.
“A bare majority Native American population voting district is not effective for Native Americans to elect the candidate of their choice," Carter said, citing distrust and other issues that, in general, can keep non-white people from the polls. Thurston County has been the subject of two previous Voting Rights suits related to redistricting.
“There has been a history of disenfranchisement of Native American voters by the county,” he said. “Whenever the tribal members don’t feel like they are part of the process and don’t have a voice in the government … that creates negative implications on voting turnout.”
Thurston County is located in northeast Nebraska, with the county seat of Pender about 88 miles northwest of Omaha. The county's 2021 population estimate was 6,620, according to the Census Bureau. Both the Omaha and Winnebago reservations are primarily in Thurston County, but also encompass parts of adjoining counties as well.
An attorney for the defendants declined to comment Friday.
In the January 2023 complaint, the two tribes alleged the Board of Supervisors did not provide American Indian voters with proper notice and an opportunity to review a proposed redistricting plan before it was adopted after the 2020 census.
The redistricting plan was not provided to the public or the tribes before the Jan. 3, 2022, meeting in which the board voted to adopt it, the tribes said in their complaint. It was only after it was already adopted that the public and the two tribes learned of the change.
Carter said the settlement was a success because it provided the "fair map" the tribes have demanded.
The four odd-numbered commissioner districts will be up for election in 2024, he said. Only one of those has an effective Native American majority, though one has a 55% majority. The other three will be up for election in 2026.
“We’re just encouraged by the judge's approval of the consent decree and look forward to increased representation on the Thurston County Board of Supervisors," Carter said.
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