One of my rules of thumb is not to mess with a tar baby, although I usually put it in far more graphic terms. In other words, never get intimate with something you can’t easily wash off your skin. I’m ignoring my own advice here, because it’s time to mention single-member districts, and I can’t think of a stickier subject. I have no horse in this race.
On the one hand, there is something disturbing about how such a small group of voters have either controlled or proved a reliable, organized opposition in Austin’s city government over most of the past three decades. This group, however, is the progressive/environmental community (which some may rationally argue is not exactly the same thing), with whose views the Chronicle most often aligns. Their greatest crime is not outrageous campaign contributions or illegal electoral manipulations, but that they vote. They vote consistently and in large numbers. Any opposition could easily dislodge this electoral majority by turning out more voters. There is the claim that this central-city voting block is out of sync with the city’s population. There is no charge of fraud, no claim that other citizens have been denied their electoral rights. The charge is that this odd coalition takes their civic responsibility too seriously, votes regularly, and has a disproportionate influence. This may seem glib, but it is a serious point. The political course of the city has been decided by a relatively small number of voters. Some claim this is inherently anti-democratic, and they may be right.
Single-member districts, on the other hand, will more easily spread the responsibility for governing the city among the community. There will be no need for a gentlemen’s agreement on African-American or Hispanic seats, because there will be minority districts. Racially, economically, and socially, the government will more accurately reflect the community. Under single-member districts, however, it is not only possible, but likely, that the council majority could be elected by fewer voters than is the council minority. This is democracy? Maybe, but maybe not.
Pragmatically, I expect that single-member districts will mean a more conservative council, with the suburban area surrounding the city having more power than the core neighborhoods. In the long run, I think this will be very bad for Central Austin. But Austin’s political future and democratic structure shouldn’t be determined by my preferences.
There is one thing I’m sure of in all this. Those who claim that we need single-member districts to make the council run more efficiently and respond more equitably to all citizens are as much in touch with reality as the silly campaign finance reformers. Once the city moves to districts (especially if we keep repressive term limits and moronic campaign finance laws in effect), expect the Balkans to look peaceful. Once politicians have to appeal regularly to a small portion of the citizenry, keeping in mind that some council members will be elected with painfully small turnouts in their districts, any pressure for cooperative or compromise legislation will be gone. As impossible as it is to get the city to move now, it will be even more difficult with single-member districts. The fiction that single-member districts will provide a quick fix for transportation, city services, and basic infrastructure issues or such cockamamie projects as ARA or CSC is juvenile. Imagine the shooting wars the council will engage in when members represent such relatively small groups of constituents. Expect not a broader vision for the city, but a more parochial one.
Which is not to say that I am for them or against them. It is to say that the easy answers being floated in the debate don’t make sense.
The biggest part of the problem here is how much blame for our city’s problems rest on the council. Admittedly, like most citizens, I think they have embarked on foolish ventures, though I imagine each citizen’s version of which are foolish is different. The biggest problem the city has faced has been uncontrolled and uncontrollable growth. This has put extraordinary stress on city services and infrastructure. If council members had been visionary geniuses, many of these problems would have still happened. I hate to be too simplistic about this, but the so-called “special interest” forces that have so damaged the community, according to many, are the voting environmental community. No group made clearer that unmanaged growth would lead to impossible civic strain. I’ll fault that community (of which I’m a member) for a certain shortsightedness on the issue of roads and transportation, but more often than not their predictions came to pass. Making Travis County a metropolitan area is a more likely solution to long-range problems than single-member districts, but I don’t think that is going to happen. Organically, growth is disruptive, and we just went through a growth spurt that we have yet to cope with, much less recover from. Making matters worse is a growth spurt followed by an economic downturn resulting in an army of problems with less revenue to solve them.
Finally, in pro-finance-reform Fred Lewis’ letter in this issue, he responds to my column last week in which I said that term limits and campaign finance reform solve no existing problem and are not in response to any corruption. Lewis responds that I “must have forgotten the Chronicle‘s political coverage of Austin in the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties.” The problem was only marginally the actions of certain councils. Austin has a history of electing underfinanced environmental/progressive candidates (often over far better-funded pro-growth ones) whose campaigns would have been damaged rather than helped by “reform.” The recent history of Austin is of well-financed development forces battling determined environmentalists. More often than not, the bulk of the law was on the side of the development forces. They were also able to mount sustained campaigns, wearing down and outmaneuvering opponents. Their victories came from money, determination, the prospect of profits, law and lawyers, not elected officials. The reality is, under the strictest growth restrictions, development would have and has overwhelmed Austin and the Hill Country. Money is a major factor, perhaps the single most important one, but rarely has it played much of a role in electoral campaigns. The reality is that campaign finance reform is a destructive bandage inappropriately applied to the wrong wound. “Reformers” are more interested in self-righteous playacting than in actually dealing with serious, complicated issues or the real-world consequences of their anti-democratic, feel-good actions.
Trouble in Paradise is the must-see film of the Austin Film Society’s “Lunatics and Lovers: Screwball Comedy of the Thirties” series at the Arbor Theatre on Tuesday nights. Showing on February 19 at 7 & 9:45pm, it will show you that every assumption you have about morals and morality in the first half of the 20th century is wrong.
We just received word that John L. Ross Jr. passed away. John was a friend of many of us since our Daily Texan days and, as our circulation manager of many years, did as much as anyone else to help establish the Chronicle in this community. We produced the paper, but he got it to readers all over the city. A chain-smoker and chain-drinker, John was cantankerous, opinionated, and brilliant at what he did. We spent many an afternoon talking circulation and politics while getting drunk with John at Dirty Sally’s and Uncle Charlie’s. Our hearts are broken. 
This article appears in February 15 • 2002.