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Geographic Representation

An Election For History Books

 An Election For History Books

Geographic representation achieved, GOP wins
three seats, and several other records set

by Ken Martin
©The Austin Bulldog 2014
Posted Wednesday December 17, 2014 8:28pm
Updated Thursday December 18, 2014 6:21am

Steve Adler at victory party, with wife Diane Land looking onThe largest landslide margin ever in an Austin mayoral runoff was achieved last night, as mayoral victor Steve Adler swamped incumbent Council Member Mike Martinez.

In Travis and Williamson counties a combined total of 80,669 votes were cast in the mayor’s race. Adler garnered 54,366 for 67.39 percent, while Martinez netted 26,303 for 32.61 percent.

Laura Morrison set the previous record by getting 65.0 percent of the votes in her 2008 runoff against Cid Galindo. Robert Barnstone got 64.98 percent in beating Sam Guzman in a 1988 runoff.

Lee Cooke in 1988 set the prevous record for margin of victory in a mayoral runoff when he got 58.43 percent of the votes to unseat incumbent mayor Frank Cooksey.

Greg CasarAt age 25, Greg Casar became the youngest Austin City Council member ever elected.

Previously the youngest council member was 26-year-old Jeff Friedman, elected in 1971.

Friedman’s campaign consultant in that election, Peck Young, verified this, saying, “Jeff was the youngest when he was elected and Greg beats him by a year.” Casar will turn 26 in early May.

Casar ran a smart campaign to soundly defeat now two-time loser Laura Pressley (she got an impressive 44.48 percent of the votes in her one-on-one challenge of incumbent Martinez in 2012).

Laura PressleyCasar’s District 4 victory of 2,851 votes (64.62 percent) to her 1,561 (35.38 percent) resulted in part from her campaign’s faux pas. Perhaps not the least of which was getting involved in a discussion of the 9-11 attacks being an inside job, which drew intense media coverage, and her latest mail piece attacking Casar for, among other things, allegedly being an atheist.

Still, last night Pressley couldn’t resist a parting shot. A little after 8pm as early voting results showed she was already behind by more than 700 votes, she insisted on being quoted as saying, “Greg sold District 4 to special interests.”

In response Casar told The Austin Bulldog, “My track record stands up for working people and progressive ideals, even when special interests stood in the way. I’m going to stay committed to that.”

Women rule

What Can Austin Learn From California?

What Can Austin Learn From California?

Panel discussion focuses on how Golden State
experiences inform city’s move to 10-1 council

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2013
Posted Monday, May 6, 2013 2:00am
Updated with video link Tuesday May 7, 2013 10:50am

Emcee Bickerstaff and panelists Ancheta, Lewis, Hadavi, Limaye, FishkinCalifornia’s official nickname, The Golden State, adopted in 1968, harkens back to the discovery of gold in 1848. Now the left-coast state’s experiences with using an independent citizens commission to draw maps for 177 seats in four different governing bodies offers a golden opportunity for learning how best to implement the City of Austin’s 10-1 plan.

The 10-1 plan for electing council members from geographic districts was approved by 60 percent of Austin voters last November 6 who voted for Proposition 3. Work is well underway to establish an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC) that will draw council districts to be implemented in the November 2014 election. The ICRC’s duties are specified in Article II, Section 3 of the Austin City Charter.

Close to a hundred people attended the panel discussion held the evening of Thursday, May 2, at the Bass Lecture Hall on the University of Texas campus. Upwards of half of those raised their hands when asked who had applied to serve on the ICRC.

The event was jointly hosted by UT’s School of Law, the LBJ School’s Center for Politics and Governance, and Austinites for Geographic Representation.

Redistricting Veteran Shares His Wisdom

Redistricting Veteran Shares His Wisdom

 Member of California Redistricting Commission
describes what to watch out for in Austin redistricting

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2013
Posted Thursday May 2, 2013 3:55pm

One of the 14 members of the California Redistricting Commission was the featured speaker at today’s luncheon hosted by Austinites for Geographic Representation and sponsored by the Austin Area Research Organization and League of Woman Voters Austin Area.

Angelo AnchetaAttorney Angelo Ancheta is director of the Katherine and George Alexander Community Law Center and an associate clinical professor at Santa Clara University, where he teaches on subjects including election law, voting rights, and immigration. He came to Austin at his own expense and with no other business here to help educate the community about what to expect going forward.

From an applicants’ pool of 30,000 people, Ancheta won a slot on the California Redistricting Commission, the group that drew the maps for four different political jurisdictions, which included 80 seats in the California State Assembly, 40 seats in the California State Senate, 53 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and four seats on the California State Board of Equalization.

Ancheta’s experience in drawing maps for California, a state with 38 million people, offers good insights into what lies ahead for the City of Austin and its 845,000 people.

Council election date to be set Friday

Posted October 4, 2011 6:54pm
Broad Community Interest Focusing on
How Mayor and Council Members Elected

Community Coalition, Austin Neighborhoods Council
and Charter Revision Committee All Working on Issues


by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2011

There's a showdown coming in a Austin City Council meeting scheduled for Thursday and a special-called council meeting on Friday.

The result will decide whether the next election for a mayor and three council members will be held in May or November 2012. Both options are on the table as the sole items posted for action in the Friday meeting scheduled to begin at 1:30pm.

Council proponents of the May 2012 election were ready to vote on second reading at today’s work session and third and final reading at Thursday’s regular meeting.

But discussion today reminded council members that the rules they adopted March 2 preclude taking action during a work session. That triggered the posting of a special-called meeting on Friday.

Assuming none of the four council members who previously voted for a May 12 council election changes their position (Sheryl Cole, Laura Morrison, Bill Spelman and Kathie Tovo), the Friday meeting will give final approval for that date.

An item on Thursday’s council agenda would authorize $500,464 for Travis County to purchase electronic voting machines to support the May election.

Mayor Lee Leffingwell asked County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir and City Clerk Shirley Gentry to provide the council with the total estimated cost to be incurred in holding a May 2012 election. He noted that whatever that cost is, it will be in addition to the cost of a November 2012 election that is likely to be held to vote on other matters.

While the next election for a mayor and three council members may be seven months away, a host of factors affecting the outcome of that election are very much in play, including a possible petition drive for a charter amendment to change the way council members are elected. 

Petition could force May charter election

At-Large Elections Favor Anglo Choices

Posted Thursday, August 4, 2011 2:00pm
Maps Prove a Select Few Govern Austin

Forty Years of Election History
Expose Extent of Disparities

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2011

It should come as no surprise that the greatest political power is exercised by those whose wealth, influence, and avid participation enable them to move the levers of democracy in their favor.

Electee Residences Map 1971-2011 (Click to see live maps)The extent to which this is true in Austin is laid bare by maps constructed by The Austin Bulldog that pinpoint the residential location of every mayor and council member elected over the last four decades.

The unalterable fact that emerges is that large parts of Austin are not represented—or are grossly underrepresented—because of the at-large system of elections established by the Austin City Charter.

This is not a new revelation. Attempts to gain voter approval for some form of council districts that would provide for equitable geographic representation have been put on the ballot six times, beginning in 1973, and six times failed to win majority support.

The ship of democracy continues to sail in the direction ordered by the majority. Which is how democracy is supposed to work.

But at what cost to those who feel disenfranchised by Austin’s at-large election system? The at-large system effectively means that all citizens—all 800,000 of us—are represented by every member of the city council. This system fails to make any one council member responsible for our concerns, or those of our neighbors. When every council member is responsible to every citizen, by definition, no one council member is responsible to a particular citizen.

The Austin City Council and a growing coalition of citizens are separately working on two different plans to give voters another opportunity in 2012 to approve a City Charter change to require the majority of city council members to be elected from geographic districts.

Based on what’s been discussed so far, these two initiatives differ significantly regarding how many council districts would be proposed, what procedure would be used for drawing district lines, the length of council terms, and whether terms would be staggered.

Both initiatives are still in the formative stages.

The City Council is scheduled to approve a resolution today (Item 28 on the agenda) to establish a 2012 Charter Revision Committee composed of 15 members who shall be appointed no later than August 25. The committee’s recommendations for charter amendments, and a map that includes any combination of at-large and geographic representation, are due by January 31.

The city’s plan or the grass-roots plan, or both, could wind up on the ballot next year.

But it should be noted that this appears to be the first time that a broad coalition of community organizations have launched a serious effort to formulate a plan that is independent of whatever proposal the city council puts forward, according to those involved in previous election campaigns for council districts.

None of the six failed propositions got on the ballot through a grass-roots petition drive. In the past, voters have only been able to react to whatever plan the city proposed—and the reaction has always been unfavorable.

Why geographic representation?

Proposed City Charter Amendments

Posted Wednesday April 27, 2011 10:38pm
City Council to Consider Proposal
to Create Geographic Representation

Election Dates, Term Lengths, Redistricting
and Other Charter Changes in Council Resolution

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2011

Geographic representation for the citizens of Austin is being driven from the top down and the bottom up. The Austin City Council is squeezed in the middle and trotting out its own proposal at today’s council meeting.

The pressure from the top comes from bills pending in the Texas Legislature that would force the city to form at least six single-member districts for the May 2012 election, when the mayor and three council members will be up for reelection.

The bottom-up pressure comes from the possible petition drive that if successful could result in a citizen-driven plan for geographic representation of council members to be put on the ballot this November or the following May.

Barring interference from the legislation or an earlier election forced by a successful petition drive, the city’s proposal is geared to be on the ballot in November 2012.

The Austin City Council is scheduled to vote today on a resolution that would direct the city manager to prepare draft City Charter amendments to accomplish a range of reforms. Among these are adding geographic representation to the council, consisting of six members elected from districts, with the mayor and two members elected at-large.

The resolution further directs: moving municipal elections from May to be held in November of odd-numbered years; increasing the term of office from three years to four years; and eliminating staggered terms, so that all council members would be elected once every four years (except for special elections for unexpired terms).

Charter changes for geographic representation on the council have been on the ballot six times and failed six times.

Broad support for council districts

 

Petition Imminent for Geographic Representation

Posted Monday March 7, 2011 10:28pm
Petition Launch Imminent to Force Election
for Geographic Representation in City Elections

Austinites for Fair Geographic Representation
to Promote 10-2-1 Plan for Council Elections

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2010

Lee LeffingwellMayor Lee Leffingwell announced in his State of the City speech on February 25 that he wants to see a plan for increasing the size and geographic representation of the city council on the ballot in a November 2012 election.

The mayor’s proposal was only a day old when a group of Austin citizens—including liberals, conservatives and minorities—gathered at Huston-Tillotson University (HTU) to discuss forming a coalition to push its own plan through a petition drive that could get on the ballot this November.

Section 9.004 of the Texas Local Government Code sets the bar: the petition must be “signed by a number of qualified voters of the municipality equal to at least five percent of the number of qualified voters of the municipality or 20,000, whichever number is the smaller.”

A “test” petition drive is scheduled for this Saturday, March 12, from 12-2pm on the south steps of the State Capitol, during an expected big rally to protest the proposed budget cuts in state funding for education.

At the HTU meeting, the group adopted the name Austinites for Geographic Representation, and hopes to recruit volunteers to gather enough signatures to force the City Council to schedule the election.

If the proposition were to get on the ballot and be approved, it would change the electoral system specified in the City Charter. Article II, Section 1 of the Charter states:  The council shall be composed of seven council members who shall ... be elected from the city at large.

Linda CurtisThe meeting at HTU was organized by Linda Curtis, co-founder of ChangeAustin.org. She has led numerous petition drives to get measures on the ballot.

The program was moderated by Professor Michael Hirsch, PhD, chair of Social and Behavioral Sciences in HTU’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Only about 15 people attended the Saturday meeting, something Curtis said was intentional, so those who attended “could have a conversation.”

Attendees included Peck Young, director of the Center for Public Policy and Political Studies at Austin Community College, and a former political consultant for some four decades; Steve Aleman, president of the Austin Neighborhoods Council, a coalition of neighborhood groups; Steve Speir, a longtime Democratic activist and board member of the Better Austin Today Political Action Committee; Stacy Suits, deputy constable for Travis County Precinct 3; Roger Borgelt, vice president of the Travis County Republican Party; Roscoe Overton, an African American citizen with longtime interest in civil rights; and two candidates for Austin City Council: Chris Nielsen, who is running for Place 3 against incumbent Randi Shade, and Josiah James Ingalls, who’s running for Place 1 against incumbent Chris Riley.

What was discussed