Possible Charter Change: Weighing District Elections in Hartford
Posted on Wednesday, December 17 2008 by Heather Brandon
At last week’s public charter revision hearing in the downtown Hartford public library, a recently-created 13-member panel (of which I am a part) heard from eight prominent officials regarding a possible revision of the city’s charter. (Photo: some members of the charter revision commission, by Robert Cotto. From left, Sara Bronin, Edwin Vargas, Matt Fleury, Marquita McElya, Heather Brandon, and Monique Rowtham-Kennedy.)
Most of the speakers had been invited to come to the podium first, prior to the general public, and this took up all of the available two hours before the library had to close at 8:00 pm. A second hearing has been arranged for Thursday, December 18, starting at 6:00 pm in City Council chambers.
Most of the speakers mentioned an interest in district elections for City Council. The subject also arose in nearly every hearing of the four held last summer by the City Council’s Legislative Affairs Committee. Read the resulting summary report of those hearings here (PDF).
The chairman of that committee, Councilperson Matt Ritter, spoke first at last week’s hearing and told the charter revision commission that district elections are “the number one issue” in considering charter reform.
Echoing the sentiment after him, in order: Councilperson Kenneth Kennedy (pictured; photo by Robert Cotto), who spoke at great length about a variety of subjects; Mayor Eddie Perez, who was concise, and only mentioned a need for district elections; Councilperson Larry Deutsch; Councilperson Luis Cotto; State Senator John Fonfara; State Board of Education Chairman (and former charter revision commission chairman) Allan Taylor; and finally, former City Councilperson Mike McGarry.
Kerri Provost of Real Hartford wrote a description of items that arose from the speakers in a lengthy blog post last week.
Aside from district elections, other significant issues that have come up include the City Council’s hiring authority; whether the mayor ought to be able to hire his own attorney, and whether there is a conflict that could be corrected in how Corporation Counsel represents the city; whether the City Council ought to have term limits; and whether the mayor has too much influence, or just enough, on the city’s Board of Education.
The city charter was last revised fairly recently, in 2002. District elections had been recommended at that point by the commission to the City Council, but the Council opted to reject it, and the matter didn’t make it to a public vote. The public has a right to petition to include any rejected item on the ballot, as well as to empanel a charter revision commission at any time.
This time around, among other balance of power issues, district elections are being scrutinized as they may compare to the issue of party representation on the City Council, and whether one approach is more favorable than the other.
Under state statute, if Hartford has all at-large representation on the City Council, there must be minority party representation. With nine members, a two-thirds minority party membership currently applies. The issue can be delved into further in the minutes of the March 26, 2002 meeting of the last charter revision commission.
If the City Council is, on the other hand, made up even partially of district representatives, the state statute does not apply, and all members could conceivably come from the same political party. The current City Council consists of six Democrats, one Republican, and two members of the Working Families Party. Minutes from a 2002 charter revision commission meeting noted, in the instance of a change to district elections for City Council, that the city would be free “to apply the concept of minority party representation” if desired, but it simply would not be required by statute.
The decision to change to a district election format, in whole or only in part (a hybrid of district and city-wide membership), hinges on issues including how the districts are arranged population-wise, what numbers work best for the total membership of City Council, and whether commissioners view party politics in the city as an attractor or a hindrance for participation in the neighborhoods compared to a smaller-scale district scenario, including issues of campaign financing and door-knocking.
Councilperson Cotto received memos on the subject from Phil Sherwood, Alderman in New Britain, and Erin Pasquale, Alderwoman in New Haven.
In his memo, Sherwood reflected on how things have changed in New Britain since a 2000 charter revision eliminating minority party representation on its City Council. Sherwood said the Council was originally 15 seats all elected at large. After the change, five seats remained at large, and ten became ward seats. He said the membership was mostly white and affluent, adding, “In fact in 1999, nine of the 15 Council members lived in the same neighborhood, just a few blocks from each other.”
After the charter revision, Sherwood said, “[W]e went from an almost all white [male] Council to having the first Hispanic female, four African Americans, and I think five of the 15 were women. Big change just in the first election cycle.”
“Each alderperson is much more in tune with neighborhood groups and community leaders,” Sherwood added, “because of the neighborhood representation, or ward-based council, we have now.”
In her memo, Pasquale wrote, “I have not thought too deeply about this, but my first reaction is to encourage you to keep what you have! Nine people is a large enough number to have meaningful differences, yet small enough to develop real power to balance a strong mayor.” She added, “The grass is always greener on the other side.”
New Haven has a 30-member Board of Aldermen. “Having 30 representatives allows for a diversity of opinions,” Pasquale wrote, “but can also lead to neighborhoods and different demographic groups pitting one against the other. It also makes for less productive working relationships. It is a full time job keeping up with 29 other people. Ultimately, I think it makes us much less effective in balancing the power of the mayor.”
Pasquale reflected as well on the underpinnings of public service: available time to volunteer, versus a need for compensation. She wrote, “The single most important way for the city council members to better serve the needs of the citizens of the city would be if there was reasonable compensation for our work. If I did not have to work a full-time job and work for my neighborhood at night and on the weekends, I could be so much more effective. Volunteerism is great, but tilts the representation towards those people with enough resources to be able to devote the kind of time that is necessary. Ideally, the council should be the place where the next generation of mayoral leadership would be fostered. But, introducing meaningful pay is a political minefield and a non-starter in these financial times.”
Real Hartford » Blog Archive » “Take as long as you need to complete this task” —Mayor Eddie Perez http://ctlocalpolitics.net/realhartford/2008/12/11/take-as-long-as-you-need-to-complete-this-task-mayor-eddie-perez/
December 17th, 2008 at 3:48 pm[...] **Updated to Add: For background info on this topic, see Urban Compass** [...]
sujal http://www.fatmixx.com
December 18th, 2008 at 12:41 amI really think that cities, even towns like West Hartford for that matter, would do better with district elections.
What are some of the negatives of a district system? the New Haven situation seems complicated by the sheer number of members.
Luis Cotto http://www.ionhartford.com
December 18th, 2008 at 11:14 amKen Kennedy’s suggestion seems to make some sort of sense although there’s no way around the assertion (and I believe this to be true) that more representatives dilute the power of the body. His suggestion is to keep the 9 at-large and add 6 coming from each assembly district in the city. That would mean the following based on how the body is structured now:
4 representatives from the west end
4 representatives from the south/southwest
3 representatives from blue hills/upper albany
2 representatives form Frog Hollal!! (lol…can u tell where I’m from)
1 each from downtown, northeast, and southeast
If you were to dissect those numbers just a little you would see that while renters comprise over 80% of our population, the proposed system allots neighborhoods with high rentals 5 representatives (33% of the vote)
[for the record, I don't count someone who "rents" in downtown as your typical "renter"] while neighborhoods with high homeownership rates get 10 reps.
I guess my point is that the deficiencies of the council as I see it will still be there. Phil Sherwood’s point re: the instant diversification of NB’s body is well taken but we don’t have a color diversity issue in HTFD (3 Puerto Ricans, 3 Blacks, 3 Whites) We have a $$$ diversity issue (8 homeowners, 1 renter) (8 people who AVG into the 70s with their collective salary while the AVG salary of a HTFD family of four is in the 20’s…below poverty level)
I’m still on the fence regarding the whole thing and I have to say thank you to the likes of urban compass and real hartford for keeping the conversation going between meetings.
peace!
sujal http://www.fatmixx.com
December 18th, 2008 at 4:12 pmWhat’s the argument for keeping the at-large slots at 9 if Hartford were to add 6 from the assembly districts?
Heather Brandon http://urbancompass.net
December 18th, 2008 at 5:15 pmSo current City Councilpersons don’t have to give up seats, making the whole idea of going to a hybrid format easier to swallow. That’s one argument, anyway.
I’d like to do some more analysis of the options and the suggestions that are put forward once this initial public hearing phase is done. Still more people to hear from, hopefully, but it remains yet to be seen whether there are going to be any significantly new ideas or proposals on this subject.
NoPolitician http://
December 19th, 2008 at 12:01 pmWhen Springfield was having a debate to switch to Ward Representation (is this the same thing?) I did some research on the topic. I found this mathematical analysis of what the optimal number of ward vs. at-large representatives would be.
The conclusion is that the optimal number of at-large representatives would be the square root of the total number of representatives; the rest would be ward or district representatives.
The analysis was based on optimizing an average voter’s “influence” over the workings of the city by influencing who is elected. I won’t pretend to understand the mathematical details.
Springfield’s upcoming ward setup is close — there will be 13 representatives, with 5 at-large and 8 ward. Optimally there should be just 4 at-large representatives, but it’s a great step forward.
It seems as though the plan suggested for Hartford isn’t quite so close. With 15 suggested members, the ideal at-large number should be 4, not 9, meaning there should be 9 district reps.
One thing I have noticed for a long time in Springfield is that an entire body that is at-large makes it very easy for poor performers to “hide” among the crowd. In Springfield, each race contained 18 choices, and each voter was to choose 9. This made it very hard to “throw someone out” because even if most people agreed that someone was bad, they couldn’t agree on an alternative. It also amplified the effect of “name recognition voters” because those votes tended to pool with the incumbents. (I know that’s how I voted the first few times I was eligible to vote, so I assume others do as well.)
Picture this: 10,000 voters, each pick 9 of 18 candidates. Assume 10% are name-recognition voters (which seems low), so each incumbent gets 1,000 votes and there are 9,000 issue voters.
Let’s say that 75% of the issue voters (6750) agree that incumbent A is lousy, so they don’t vote for her. 25% (2250) like her. That candidate gets 2,250 votes, plus the 1,000 low-information voter votes, totaling 3,250 votes.
The remaining voters can’t agree on who to pick in her place. They divide their votes evenly among the 9 challengers. They cast their other 8 votes for incumbents.
Each other incumbent would get 9,000 votes from the issue voters, plus 1,000 votes from the low-info voters. Each challenger would get 843 votes from the info voters, and no other votes.
The end result would be the 8 popular incumbents would have 10,000 votes, the widely-reviled incumbent would have 3,250 votes, and the challengers would have 843 votes.
And people would be left scratching their heads — because even though 67.5% of the people wanted someone voted out, she was returned to office with nearly 4 times the votes of the nearest challenger.
This explains why Springfield has seen precisely 4 incumbents turned out of office since 1988. Well, that and the fact that having to pick 9 choices makes most people into low-information, name recognition voters. That is too many people to know deep information about.
NoPolitician http://
December 19th, 2008 at 12:02 pmWhoops — I meant for a body of 15, it is optimal at 11 district reps, and 4 at-large reps.
Ken Krayeske http://www.the40yearplan.com/
December 20th, 2008 at 4:20 pmHeather -
Great reporting, and thanks for keeping us updated on this.
Understanding that representation is at the top of the agenda for the charter revision commission, may I suggest that you look into public financing mechanisms for the mayoral race in 2011, and instant runoff voting. San Francisco has experienced significant success utilizing IRV.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0112-23.htm
Thanks for your efforts.
Peace,
KK
Robert Cotto
December 21st, 2008 at 9:57 pmHeather,
Thanks for the update on the meeting. I’m very concerned about the talk of ward or district representation. As the city council seems to be shaping up a bit in their opposition to the mayor, this attempt seems to be a way to split the unity unity within the Democratic and Working families party. Furthermore, talk about district representation seems to be diverting our energy from the increasing need to question the power of the executive administration and the pressing issues at hand. The current executive was very influential in the 2002 Charter Revision, so why is the he only now interested in pushing this change? A move towards district representation would be a move from a “strong” mayor form of government to a “stronger” mayor form. Unfortunately, the district representation will be advertised as a more “democratic” system. Is it more demoractic to have a strong mayor and weaker, more dispersed city council?
Heather Brandon http://urbancompass.net
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 pmNoPolitician, thanks for the link to the mathematical analysis. I remember you talking about this with respect to Springfield. Yes, “district representation” is the same concept as ward rep. Hartford’s various areas designated for state reps are called districts, which it shares with neighboring communities just like Springfield does for its wards.
Ken, thanks very much for info about instant runoff voting in SF. Easy of use is key. More coalition-building and issues-based campaigning, and less mud-slinging also sound appealing…
Robert, great points. Do you happen to have a recollection of where Mayor Perez stood at the time, on the matter of district representation, in 2002? Has he gone through a change in outlook?
Robert Cotto
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:51 amHeather,
I’ll look into it.
R