Monday, July 07, 2008

Chris Bortz on PR, 9x, and Cincinnati Voting

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

Guest article by Councilmember Chris Bortz

The current “at large” or 9X system really just means that every member of Council represents the entire city.  Some, including Mr. Berding, have suggested that it would be better to have a number of districts or a combination of at large and districts.  I am opposed to districts, but would support a system where each seat is identified and voted on individually.  So, I might run for seat #7 against that specific incumbent.  Such a system creates more direct voter accountability, but avoids the potential for district to district horse trading at the expense of the big picture.

The voting mechanism does not deal with how Council represents the city.  Strictly speaking, PR as a voting system works for any Council arrangement, and could also work for the Mayor’s election.  IRV, Choice Voting, and PR all just refer to the voter’s ability to rank candidates in order of preference, regardless of the number of people they can vote for a particular office. 

Charter’s official position is to retain the current representation system so that every member of Council represents the whole city (in theory) not just one neighborhood or district, and that PR is the appropriate voting mechanism to elect Council.

Some might argue that various members of Council over the years have been more focused on one neighborhood over another.  Can you imagine the kinds of negotiations that would ensue if members were elected by one neighborhood or a cluster of neighborhoods?  Might make it very difficult for Council to consider the entire city as policy and priorities are set.

The other question on the table under Mr. Berding’s motion is the power of the Mayor and the City Manager.  Currently, the Manager is the CEO and CAO of the city.  The Mayor has no executive authority.  That is, the Mayor can’t hire or fire directors or anyone on the city payroll except his own staff.  I don’t think the time is right for us to eliminate the Professional Manager/Council form of government.  The most recent changes to the Mayor’s authority have only been in place for a few years.  I think the system is working much better than in the past.  The Mayor has more power over Council, but the city administration is still relatively insulated from politics.  I think it best to leave things as they are on that front for now.

Charter was founded on the Manager/Council form of government, so I imagine it would take some very compelling arguments to get Charter to abandon that form in favor of an Executive Mayor system.

Socializer!

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R says:
07 Jul 2008  at  02:22 pm | #

Mr Bortz,

In a sense I agree with your letter, but with my opinion.

1. District representation works very well in cities much larger than Cincinnati. It allows the voters in that district to hold the Council member in their district responsible for their postions, votes, and actions.  Many cities larger than Cincinnati conduct and practice, not just in theory, looking at the city as a whole. Whatever the system, it would still be up the each and every council member as a matter of personal responsiblity to look at the neighborhood and the city as a whole.

2. The Street car at 200 million is a Good deal for Hyde Park? Mt Adams? Northside? Westwood?  Or is it a good deal for a small certain group of people and business interests? If so, let them pay for it. It is not a “city issue as a whole”.

3. One could argue that council is foucused more on themselves rather than a Neighborhood that they would represent, or the city as a whole.

3. The City manger you have is a good one. He did a great job in Louisville . I hope to God that you guys dont drive him away.  With all do respect to the Mayor, if he just heard a month or 2 ago at a Gas station in the suburbs the long held reason why people don’t go downtown, would be bizzare. Has he not lived here all his life?

No matter what way the Council is elected, and PR is the way to go so that everyone has some representation, it is the personal choice and responsibility of each and every Council memeber to look at the City AS A WHOLE for the citizens.

I am not seeing much of that.

says:
07 Jul 2008  at  10:08 pm | #

I am intrigued by the idea of challenging particular seats.  I don’t know if I like it, but I like thinking about it. 

For example, what if Greg Harris had been pit against Jeff Berding?  Would Harris have had a better showing?

Do candidates who don’t raise millions of dollars have a better, or worse chance of winning if each seat were to be challenged?

It would make things more accountable—or at least differently accountable—and it would certainly give a new sense of competition to the field… but I’m still not sure what to think…

R says:
08 Jul 2008  at  01:59 am | #

Yes, I can see it both ways.  you are right.  would it be the money?  would it make a difference? Or, people would be tuned into what they person is doing, and if they are playing the game, I dont think it would matter.  If John smith was distict ___ and he was doing things the people didnt like ( spending 200 million on a streetcar.  John smith is going to hear it, and probably wont have his seat if he voted for it.  Why would the district of say Okaley, want a 200 million dollar street car? The the people of Oakley could call him, sent a 1,000 e-mails saying they dont like it, and if he votes for it, he’s gone come election time. Be a pretty powerful deterent, ( if he wants to be a council person) and he would have no choice but to not ride with the heard.  It would give him more power in a sense.  He could say “hey, my people are calling and they are not happy about this square, or this streecar. we need some questions answered first or I cant support it”

If as Mr Bortz says , looking at the city as a whole is the issue, I still think that is a personaly responsibilty every council person has.  But wih Challenging seats, it would sure be easier to hold a particular council memeber, or all of them, accountable to the people( district) they represent. 

Atlanta does it, and it changed the whole city, fixed up neighborhoods, added parks.  works great.  Here, you have a “board” meet in the back room, everything is done before it gets there. The people get their 2 minutes and nobody is listening..  you know that story.

with the way things are now, it would be like having 9 oversight groups. Events have probably proven that may not be a bad thing.

Free reign is not is the city charter.

says:
11 Jul 2008  at  06:15 am | #

Bortz starts his comments with the biggest lie:

The current “at large” or 9X system really just means that every member of Council represents the entire city.


Actually, the current at-large system really means to protect council members from accountability. And Proportional-Representation is also an at-large system. It may give a few more status but at the same time take status away from other council members. I and others including the Dean have sent letters to council and a “vague reply” is something that few of us receive. Face it, these are politicians and if they can avoid controversy, they will. That is one of the main strategies of winning a political race in America.

Then he goes on to say:

I am opposed to districts, but would support a system where each seat is identified and voted on individually.  So, I might run for seat #7 against that specific incumbent.  Such a system creates more direct voter accountability, but avoids the potential for district to district horse trading at the expense of the big picture.

What in the hell does that mean? He talks of “voter responsibility” but nothing about “ council member responsibility”. And what is “seat #7”? He wants a system to confuse the voter even more so that name recognition will be most important and it will be a system that will further confused and drive away the voters.

Bortz states his party’s tired rant but he does admit the weakness is a theory:

Charter’s official position is to retain the current representation system so that every member of Council represents the whole city (in theory) not just one neighborhood or district, and that PR is the appropriate voting mechanism to elect Council.

We can see, currently, the secrecy and confusion and anonymous poor judgment that has us asking unanswered questions about a restaurant on Fountain Square, 3CDC, Banks, Stadiums , red-light cameras , ect. ect. It isn’t neighborhoods that get special treatment, it is individuals and companies. Can you imagine what would happen if your district representative would say if he couldn’t hide behind the other council member AND THE ADMINISTRATION?

Yes, let’s not forget about the ADMINISTRATION, which hides behind COUNCIL and COUNCIL, which hides behind the ADMINISTRATION in our present system.

Next he attributes credibility to a vague complaint and implies that district system would make matters worse when he writes:

Some might argue that various members of Council over the years have been more focused on one neighborhood over another.  Can you imagine the kinds of negotiations that would ensue if members were elected by one neighborhood or a cluster of neighborhoods?  Might make it very difficult for Council to consider the entire city as policy and priorities are set.

He threatens what will happen when when a “cluster” gets together on an issue, but isn’t that exactly what happens or is intended to happen with proportional representation? Isn’t the goal of PR to allow groups to get together to elect a particular candidate?

What will happen with districts, it will allow the people to more easily address their representatives directly with a problem and get a response. If the response is vague or unsatisfactory, the citizen can show up at the representative’s office and demand an explanation without the vagueness or misunderstanding. The citizen will have more power because that citizen can mobilize his individual weight to go after that representative’s seat himself or with another, which is near impossible unless you are rich enough to do it in the present at-large system unless you have a big ego or have some business interests behind you. In short, it returns power to the people.

Finally, on the issue of the choice of mayor. It should be the district representatives that make that decision because they know better than most average citizens the real qualifications of the candidates or they could go outside the field of elected representatives. The average citizen has more to do such as earning a wage than to do hard to obtain research on each candidate - another reason for districts as the voter will often have more knowledge of his district candidates than he will for at-large candidates. This also reduces the power of political parties, which use local elections as a farm team for their political purposes. Political party goal are often in conflict with local needs.

PS Bortz was a member of the group that “explored” district elections a few years back. It was a sham and nothing was even recommended; it just made some feel like something was being done.

Respectfully submitted,
Dieter Schmied

says:
11 Jul 2008  at  01:31 pm | #

It should be the district representatives that make that decision because they know better than most average citizens the real qualifications of the candidates or they could go outside the field of elected representatives. The average citizen has more to do such as earning a wage than to do hard to obtain research on each candidate - another reason for districts as the voter will often have more knowledge of his district candidates than he will for at-large candidates.

Dieter Schmied, couldn’t you make the same argument for every office then? The media fails to give citizens good information on the candidates voting records, campaign contributors and positions on the issues. How many people follow their Congress members records, Or their State Reps. records? Many citizens don’t even know their names and many that vote go with whatever name sounds familiar.

The people should be the “deciders” and they should be given accurate and fair coverage of all candidates. The way the current system is even in district races money would play a large role because the media is more interested in ad revenue than giving in-depth coverage. If they did give in-depth coverage the influence of money would become virtually irrelevant.

says:
11 Jul 2008  at  07:53 pm | #

Justin!

Of course the same argument can be made for each office, if in a perfect world where all humans had no faults and where all humans had the same priorities. But we aren’t in a perfect world.

I did not go into much detail about my thoughts on the election of the mayor because there are so many different ways and many of them have equal appeal.

Let me try to explain my general thoughts on your question. Humans have many tendencies and/or traits and if government chooses to ignore them, we will be constantly be swimming upstream. It is better to recognize these tendencies and traits and instead of ignoring them, we should try to accommodate them or workaround them and not just pass some law in an effort to bully those who have these natural traits. There are many many human traits that the government and those in power wish didn’t exist in others. If the trait exists in those in power, they are often tolerated or ignored. For example laziness is one; greed is another; a will towards power is another; fear is another; a desire for pleasure is another and so on. Abe Maslow, a psycho-guy even published Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for humans.

In the case of elections and voting, many don’t care to varying degrees. When we make it difficult or allow involvement in the process to appear to be futile, we further discontent and suspicion in the process and many just ignore the process as much as they can. In any case, there are many that just feel that they aren’t part of the system and it would follow any result lose much of their credibility.

I would expect that districts would be closer to the people. The people would feel that they count. Doing research on candidates at the district level would not be overwhelming, while doing research at the city level for a mayor might be just a tad too much to expect. Maybe a few years down the road of getting involved at the district level, many might feel comfortable getting more involved but it must not be expected because it just might not be a priority ever for some. Regardless, it is still their government and they aren’t bad people because they don’t share the same values as you or me or the majority.

While it would be nice that everyone should be given accurate and fair coverage, it is just like human traits. While it would be nice, it ain’t happening and you or the government cannot tell the media to do its job, if indeed it is their job. So the reality says what you want is a pipe dream so you have to work around it; districts are a way around it at the local district level. If we can get more people interested at this level, we can expect more at a higher level. We might even hist he critical mass required to get the media to do their job. It is just like marketing many products; just consider the computer industry or the cell phone industry. The consumers got sucked in little by little. They made the computer and the cell phone easy to use and dealt with the fears that many still have with the computer.

You all have to study the real dynamics of any system and not how it might appear on paper or how you would like it to work.

says:
11 Jul 2008  at  08:26 pm | #

dieterschmied, yes the government can make the media do it’s job and so can people if they get organized and make it a prioirity. In France all presidential candidates that are on the ballot get equal and free amount of airtime. If other countries can do this, why can’t we?

Papers don’t use our airwaves and can’t be regulated, but broadcasters can and should be. In the UK you have the BBC. I think we need not for profit media. PBS is better than the corporate media, but they rely on corporate funding also.

One of the problems with districts is that they can be gerrymandered and carved up by those in power to keep those in power. We need only look at some of the curly cues and squiggles in the Congressional districts. I’m not entirely opposed to districts, but there are real problems that need to be addressed and talked about.

I’m all for accountable government, the question is how do we get it? I don’t understand your previous point about district representatives picking the candidates instead of the people. How is that democratic?

says:
11 Jul 2008  at  09:08 pm | #

Justin, Justin, Justin!

Where have you been. Have you not heard of DieterDistricting?  There can be no gerrymandering as the districts are made up by computer and there is no political input. The districts are compact . One man-one vote is guaranteed. It is just simply gerrymander-proof. It uses the same technology that is presently being used by the major parties to gerrymander. If we adopted it here, it would give Cincinnati undeserved credit because it would eventually force states to do it as well.

As to the demands on television, I agree. This government sold the rights to digital recently so I doubt that we will get what you suggest.

says:
12 Jul 2008  at  06:44 pm | #

dieterschmied, who will be carving up the districts? Diebold, or perhaps dieterbold?

says:
13 Jul 2008  at  10:43 am | #

Justin!

I gave a detailed explanation in the recent past and don’t want to go into the same detail.

Essentially, using a database of registered voters, mapquest-type technology and very simple geometry, the composed districts begin at the extreme eastern or western most point to the area to be districted. The eastern and western lines of each district are always true-north lines except the outer edge-districts. The algorithm directs the total of all district perimeters to be the most minimum possible (which always approaches a square configuration).Then one just inserts the number of districts desired and the database locations and numbers of registered voters is inputed and each districts is formed with an equal number of voters.

This is similar to the way South Africa does it, but theirs is primarily concerned with district size and the physical distance each voter has to travel to a polling place, but in any case it is not subject to gerrymandering. 

So, no one will be carving districts; the computer does it within the parameters that are blind to politics and established earlier and are made part of the city charter. 

It is very simple except it requires a commitment to one man-one vote principle , which is not what the manipulators of power over the proletariat really want.