Tremendous resources are expended in attempts to level the playing field for minority voter groups in the United States. This has been most recently evidenced by the ongoing process of redrawing boundary lines for the seven Clark County Commission districts. The county has taken great pains to make every possible accommodation to minority groups. Separate maps have been drawn showing the greatest concentrations of each urban minority. Those maps have been manipulated carefully to adjust boundary lines and establish effective minority voting blocs. Public meetings have been strategically located right in each of the neighborhoods of minority groups to make public comment readily available to them. In one such meeting last week, most of the two hours were spent squabbling over how best to draw lines that would boost the political potency of each minority.

We are told that all of these things are required by federal law. Of course, noble intentions are at the root of these laws. But the fruits of such laws are over-complicated, tedious, contentious and extremely expensive. Still, these methods continue to be employed in a finger-crossed attempt to ward off the lawsuits which are bound to follow.

Despite all of this, there is one minority voter group in Clark County that is receiving very little attention in this redistricting process. Not specifically mentioned in the federal Voting Rights Act, this minority is easily brushed aside and largely forgotten about. It is not specifically dealt with on the maps. Its population figures are visibly absent from any statistical data being considered. No need to draw creative lines to encircle, establish and empower its voting bloc. No need to hold public meetings anywhere near its neighborhoods. This neglected minority group is, of course, the county’s rural residents.

There is much more than skin color that makes up a so called “community of interest”. The county’s rural towns stand as proof of this. Though they are divided by vast tracts of barren land, there is much that these small communities hold in common. They are all struggling with severe economic contraction in the current recession. They all desperately need economic diversification and growth to begin a recovery. They all, especially the unincorporated areas, find any growth opportunities that come their way being squelched by inflexible urban county codes and standards that have little relevance to their rural landscapes. And, finally, the members of this rural minority often find that their voices are not nearly loud enough to make an impact on election day nor to be heeded in the halls of power. Sounds an awful lot like an under-represented minority group, no?

Other minority groups loudly proclaim that the only way to solve their perceived problem of under-representation is to jury-rig the district lines in order to ensure one African American and at least one Hispanic are elected to the next Commission. But it could well be argued that rural areas have far more unique and idiomatic issues than any of these urban ethnic groups or inner-city racial segments have. Each of the small rural towns in the county have very different community traditions, distinct sets of civic priorities and unique visions for their future. The average urban-minded county commissioner would have great difficulty comprehending the complex and distinct values of this rural minority. An elected specialist would be needed to truly represent the rurals of the county; a true rural commissioner. Unfortunately, no attempt is being made in the current process to provide for such a thing.

To be fair, though, the idea does present quite a puzzle. The rural voters make up less than 5% of the population and they are spread out over 90% of the territory. Even if you drew a huge donut encompassing all rural areas around the urban Vegas valley, and put all of it in one mammoth district, you’d still be far short of the 270,000 now considered the ideal population for a commission district. Thus, the election of a true rural commissioner is an extreme long shot.

But the problem is not so much that we can’t elect one rural commissioner than it is that we don’t have seven. As the lines are proposed, five of the commissioners will have bits and pieces of the rurals within their districts. Yes that dilutes and weakens the rural vote. But, in an ideal world, it should also give the rural minority five rural commissioners.

And, while we are on it, shouldn’t all seven of the commissioners be “our” commissioners? The commission is, after all, just a local governing body. That should mean that it can be easily accessed and entreated by all of the townspeople.

Unfortunately, this is not the way things have been run. Rather than a county commission it has become a group of seven fiefdoms. To accomplish anything in a given district, a person must bow the knee before the master of the fief and plead his cause. Thus, when a rural issue comes before the board, all the commissioners simply defer to the judgement of that one fief-master set over the particular rural area; never mind that the rural residents may have had absolutely no hand in electing him/her to the position.

Even so, that has worked out in the past as long as the fief-master stays in harmony with the wishes of his subjects. But in recent years rural residents throughout the county have experienced situations where “their” commissioner has been miles out of step with the wishes of the community and has then drawn the entire commission along with him. In these instances, the rural minority has found that they have nowhere to go for redress. There has been no one to represent their unique rural interests.

Such a thing would never be tolerated if it were done to a racial or ethnic minority in the city. If so, the possible legal implications would, no doubt, drive all of the other Commissioners to rally around the urban disenfranchised and join with them in a hearty verse of “We Shall Overcome”.

But when the rural minority has tried to find similar redress from such grievances they have been viewed narrowly as just those old country folks being difficult again; and they have then been sent back to “their” fief-masters to work things out.

In last week’s redistricting meeting, political consultant David Heller stated that his proposal had divided up the rural areas among the commissioners so that no one elected official would have too much of the rural burden to bear. Can you imagine such a thing being said of the Hispanic, African American or Asian minorities in the city?

Perhaps some division of rural areas is inevitable, given the vast geographic territory at issue here. But it is perverse to somehow view this necessity as a way to cut down on the Commissioners’ workload in order to allow them more focus on their important urban responsibilities. Such an idea is outrageous! Instead this inherent, and perhaps unavoidable, inequity should be viewed by each Commissioner as a desperate need to step up and dutifully represent the minority interests of rural residents wherever they may be throughout the county. Not just those in their own district.