On December 2, 2024, the Richardson City Council appointed eleven members to a Charter Review Commission, as required by law every ten years to review and suggest changes to Richardson's City Charter. I will be presenting my own suggestions.
The City of Dallas just completed its own once-a-decade review of its City Charter. As homework, the Richardson Charter Review Commission ought to review the City of Dallas's work, certainly before concluding that no significant changes are needed to Richardson's Charter.
Now, on to my suggestions. The first deals with the makeup of the City Council.
Single-member districts
Amendment: One member of the city council, Place 7, shall be elected by the qualified voters of the entire city and 6 members by the qualified voters residing in a particular district, Places 1 through 6 respectively.
No person shall be eligible as a candidate for member of council, Place 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7, unless the person is at the time a resident of District 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7, respectively, and has resided within the district in which the person is a candidate for a period of at least six months prior to the date of the election.
Source: Mark Steger.
Single-member districts divide a city into geographic areas, and each district elects its own representative to the city council. This system is commonly used to ensure fairer representation of diverse communities: diversity of race, religion, gender, national origin, age, socio-economic status, and political affiliation. Single-member districts also reduce the barriers to entry. The cost to run a winning campaign in a district of 20,000 residents is much less than the cost to mount a citywide campaign in a city of 120,000, something every single councilmember is forced to do today. The winning candidates in single-member districts will have a closer relationship to the residents of their district.
The United States Congress uses single-member districts. The Texas House uses single-member districts. The Texas Senate does, too. The majority of Texas cities use single-member districts to elect their city councils, larger cities exclusively so.
- Houston: 11 single-member districts.
- San Antonio: 10 single-member districts.
- Dallas: 14 single-member districts.
- Austin: 10 single-member districts.
- Fort Worth: 10 single-member districts.
- El Paso: 8 single-member districts.
Ask an average resident of Richardson and they probably think that Richardson already has single-member districts. We don't. Despite the mongrel system Richardson has that has a residency requirement for four of the councilmembers, all seven are elected at-large citywide.
Richardson's at-large election system is a tool of a bygone era, where racial discrimination was maintained by having the overall white majority outvote minorities in at-large elections. It's time for Richardson to replace this system while we can control the outcome rather than leaving it in the hands of a court-ordered settlement to a lawsuit.
"At-large systems fade,
Districts bloom where silence grew,
All voices now heard."
—h/t ChatGPT
See also:
Council Recap: Charter Review Commission
1 comment:
One objection to single-member districts is "We don't want to become Dallas."
Counter-argument: Single-member districts don't create differences of opinion. Differences of opinion exist no matter what form of government you have. At-large elections just sweep the differences of opinion under the rug instead of dealing with them out in the open.
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