Geographic Representation

The rain-delayed “Trust Austin” rally honoring civil rights leader Arthur DeWitty, originally scheduled for a week earlier, drew a Saturday audience that event organizers Austinites for Geographic Representation (AGR) estimated at 150-200 people to the Park Place Pavilion in East Austin.

It was the latest in a string of Proposition 3 campaign activities that included multiple in-house fundraisers and a garage sale, as well as numereous appearances at neighborhood association meetings. Funds raised so far have been used to print 100,000 door hangars, plus yard signs and fliers to be distributed by volunteers.

Representatives from numerous community organizations spoke in favor of the 10-1 plan, leaving no doubt of their passion for electing City Council members from geographic districts, instead of the all-at-large system that’s been in place since 1953.

Noting that some form of geographic representation had been on the ballot six times before and failed, retired State Senator Gonzalo Barrientos said, “Politicians put it on the ballot and then sat on their hands. We want geographic representation.”

Barrientos said Mayor Lee Leffingwell and Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole asked him to sit on the 2012 Charter Revision Committee, which he chaired. “Hundreds of people said what they wanted, and we recommended the 10-1 plan” to the City Council. “Did they pay attention? No!

Editor’s introduction: Proposition 3 is on the November 6 ballot. If it gains voter approval and garners more votes than Proposition 4, Proposition 3 would require 10 council members to be elected from geographic districts and the mayor to be elected at-large. Proposition 3 requires an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw council districts the City Council would have no choice but to adopt.

It is important that Austin voters have a thorough understanding of the Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission before casting ballots in this important election. To that end, on September 24, The Austin Bulldog published attorney Steve Bickerstaff’s scholarly study of the strengths and weaknesses of various systems used for redistricting throughout the nation, including 50 cities. (Bickerstaff’s extensive legal experience with redistricting was detailed in the introduction to that article and need not be repeated here.)

That article drew 20 comments, some of which needed a much fuller response than could be accommodated through posting replies in the comments section. Bickerstaff wrote this piece to address the concerns raised in those comments—specifically the points raised by Proposition 4 advocates Julio Gonzalez Altamirano and Richard Jung. Proposition 4 provides for electing eight council members from geographic districts and the mayor and two council members at-large. Districts would be drawn as determined by a later ordinance.

Thank you for the opportunity to join the dialogue on the possibility that the voters of Austin will adopt an independent redistricting commission.

I am not a member of Austinites for Geographic Representation (AGR). My clients in the past have utilized essentially every form of election system [e.g. single-member districts, at-large elections (Austin), and hybrid systems using a combination of at-large and single-member elections (Houston)]. Each of these election systems has advantages and disadvantages.

The University of Texas Law School provided the venue for a fourth public debate over the question of whether—or even if—the Austin City Charter should be amended to allow for some form of geographic representation on the Austin City Council.

The September 28 debate was emceed by Sherri Greenberg, a former state representative who is director of UT’s Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

All five panelists were members of the 2012 Charter Revision Committee that voted by a narrow 8-7 majority to recommend that 10 council members be elected from geographic districts and only the mayor continue to be elected at-large, that is by all voters.

Ken Rigsbee, an independent oil and energy professional, voted to recommend the 10-1 plan and explained why. “It looked to me like the Charter Revision Committee would have a tie vote, after six months of arguing and debating,” he said. “I voted for 10-1. That doesn’t mean I wanted it—I just wanted to stop the meetings.”

Rigsbee said he told Mayor Lee Leffingwell, who nominated him to serve on the Charter Revision Committee, “I said, ‘Lee, what is it about ‘no’ you don’t understand?’

He was referring to the fact that the voters of Austin had six opportunities between 1973 and 2002 to adopt geographic representation and the majority had always voted no.

“Is it worth spending $2 million for 11 council members vice seven, to force political horse-trading between council members?” Rigsbee asked. “Is it really imperative we do that? My answer is no.” (The city’s assessment of fiscal impact for the four additional council members and their staffs under Propositions 3 or 4 calls for $888,350 for construction and build-out for the additional offices, and an additional ongoing annual cost of $1,396,000 a year.)

The other panelists all agree that the at-large system in use since 1953 must be changed, but disagree on how to do that.

The proponents of Proposition 3—Austinites for Geographic Representation (AGR)—got a huge head start in a grassroots campaign to win voter approval for geographic representation on the Austin City Council. They started meeting in February last year, waged a successful petition drive to get on the ballot, and have built a broad coalition of supporters, including 29 organizations and numerous community leaders. (For a list of endorsements, click here.)

The advocates for Proposition 4—Austin Community for Change (AC4C)—are pushing a different plan for geographic representation. They are running from behind and hoping to raise enough money to convince voters they have the best plan. They have rapidly built a list of 19 community organizations supporting their plan as well as individual community supporters. (For a list of endorsements, click here.)

Both AGR and AC4C have websites loaded with information touting their respective plans but there's a striking visual difference.

The banner atop the AGR pages contains a montage of nine photos taken at various Austin events.

The AC4C page headers show a photo purchased from iStockphoto.com titled “Diverse group casually dressed people looking up.”

Independent redistricting commissions for U.S. states and cities

Editor's introduction: Over the past 36 years attorney Steve Bickerstaff, adjunct professor at the University Of Texas School Of Law, has represented more than 100 jurisdictions on redistricting matters, including during the redistricting process, or before the U.S. Department of Justice, or in state or federal courts. These jurisdictions include the State of Texas (in three different decades) and various local governments (cities, counties, school districts, community colleges and special districts) in Texas and elsewhere. The electoral systems of these jurisdictions have included wholly at-large, wholly single-member, and hybrid or mixed (partially at-large) election structures.

He is author of Lines in the Sand (2007), a book about the controversial 2003 congressional redistricting in Texas; co-author of International Election Principles (2009); and author of 25 law journal articles dealing primarily with election law and telecommunications regulation.

Bickerstaff wrote the initial draft for the nonpartisan Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission. The Commission is an integral part of Proposition 3, which was put on the ballot through a petition drive conducted by Austinites for Geographic Representation. Bickerstaff’s draft was based on the Voters First Act, which through initiative and referendum established a system of independent redistricting in the State of California.

It is important that Austin voters have a thorough understanding of the Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission before casting ballots in the November 6 election. To that end, The Austin Bulldog is publishing Bickerstaff’s scholarly study of the strengths and weaknesses of various systems used for redistricting throughout the nation.

  Much has been written about the use of redistricting commissions for redrawing state legislative and congressional district lines. Twenty- two states now have some form of commission. However, the nature, jurisdiction and importance of these commissions vary greatly. By contrast, virtually nothing has been written about the use of redistricting commissions at the local level of government. This is particularly surprising because virtually all large and middle-size U.S. cities use at least some election districts that must be redrawn every 10 years, and because most of these cities are home-rule jurisdictions that generally have broad legal authority to adopt their own process for drawing local election district boundaries.[1] A purpose of this article is to provide government officials, public interest activists, and attorneys with a means for assessing the value of a municipal redistricting commission and for designing such commission to take self-interest and bias out of a process in which they have no legitimate role.[2]