Gerg,
Do you favor proportional representation in any model? If you do, I'd like
to hear more about how you might structure it.
Russ Peterson
Ward 9
Standish Ericsson
R U S S E L L P E T E R S O N D E S I G N
"You can only fly if you stretch your wings."
3857 23rd Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55407
612-724-2331
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Russell W. Peterson, RA, CID
Founder
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Greg Abbott
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 10:23 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: Charter Commission and Reforming the Council
As former chair of the City DFL, I have some opinions the political reforms
proposed by Cam Gordon et al.
The scheme envisioned by Cam Gordon has serious constitutional problems.
Suppose that the DFL wins all 6 of the geographic wards, and that, before
using proportional representation, 6 of the 7 at large seats. Proportional
representation kicks in, and 3 of the 6 DFL at-large candidates are denied
election.
The Supreme Court has taken the position that the constitution requires "one
person, one vote." That rule was announced in the 1960's in response to
constitutional attacks on gerrymandered single-member districts. But
consider a lawsuit brought by a DFL candidate who has achieved a sufficient
majority of at-large votes to be elected to the council, who is denied
election on the grounds that too many other DFL'rs have been elected to the
council. The constitutional argument is that proportional representation
would disenfrachise DFL voters city-wide because of the results of the
single-member ward elections. A voter in Ward 6 would lose his right to
case a ballot for an at-large DFL candidate because of the results of the
election in Wards 1-5, elections in which he is not entitled to case a vote.
Given the current state of election law, I believe this constitutional
argument would receive serious consideration by the courts.
My point is that you can't mix and match proportional representation with
ANY scheme of subordinate geographic districts without violating the
constitutional requirement of one person, one vote.
Another problem with efforts to limit the number of CM's from one political
party is the non-partisan nature of city elections. We don't have party
primaries in the city, we have open elections where anyone can run under
whatever party label they want to claim on the ballot.
Let's say for example, that we amended the Charter to adopt a rule that said
no more than 10 of 13 council members can "belong" to one political party.
How would you enforce that? Perhaps a rule that only 10 candidates can be
on the ballot who list themselves as DFL'rs? That would violate the
constitutional rights of candidates who want to claim affiliation with the
DFL. No government or political party can override the First Amendment
rights of a candidate who wants to claim that they are a Democrat, for
example (just ask Lyndon LaRouche).
Suppose you have three at large council seats. You could have a charter
rule that says no political party can nominate more than one candidate for
these at-large seats. But in order to enforce that, you'd have to have a
party primary to determine which of the various DFL'rs are entitled to be
the one DFL representative. (I suppose you could do it by a
caucus-convention process, but the party primary was enacted precisely to
avoid the "smoke-filled room" convention process).
Constitutionally speaking, the City can't adopt any rule which explicitly
treats candidates of one political party differently from other candidates
(either favorably or unfavorably). There are serious equal
protection/freedom of speech issues which occur if you do so.
However, the City can adopt a "neutral" rule that might as a natural
by-product produce more political diversity on the Council. You could elect
all 13 CM's at large, using proportional representation. Or you could
create five wards, and have each elect three CM's using proportional
representation.
But I think that Cam Gordon's "compensatory mixed member" proposal is
clearly out of bounds, as a constitutional matter.
I also have a serious practical objection to having only 6 geographic
Council Members. Under the current system, Council Members have a
substantial administrative responsibility for their wards. Steve Minn has
said that, if he or she is doing her job properly, the Council Member is
working 50-60 hours weeks. There are numerous neighborhood meetings to go
to, for example, just to deal with the various zoning and variance issues
that crop up.
The at-large members, by definition, would have no responsibility for any
specific geographic area. Thus, going from 13 wards to 6 wards would more
than double the administrative workload for a geographic council member.
Constituent service would suffer (and suffer badly) I suspect.
Even if the city went to a strong-mayor system (and took administrative
duties away from CMs), a CM would still be deeply involved in local zoning
or administrative issues, even if just to lobby the Mayor for his or her
constituents (Members of Congress serve this function in the federal
system). Local citizens are always going to want a CM to go to bat for
them on this issue or that, and having only six CM's to handle all of the
local issues just isn't enough to provide an appropriate level of
constituent service.
Greg Abbott
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Sent from the computer of:
Greg Abbott [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linden Hills
13th Ward (612) 925-0630
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