In the comments to my post yesterday on district elections (I made the point that the city council lives all over the city, countering one frequent complaint of district-elections proponents that districts would equalize geographic representation on the council), some folks asked if I had done a similar map for the current crop of council candidates. I have now, and here it is:
If anything, the council candidates are even more evenly distributed, geographically, than the council (in part, perhaps, because there are more of them): I count candidates in Rainier Beach, Highland Park, Delridge, Maple Leaf, Interbay, Ballard, Wedgwood, Fremont, Laurelhurst, Magnolia, and Montlake. So again: What neighborhood representation problem would carving up the city into four (or nine) geographical districts solve?
This map doesn’t show density. If you look at a map of US senators, you’re obviously going to see a somewhat uniform distribution (except more in the east where states are smaller). But although that makes the senate geographically representative, the relevant unit is the voter, not the square mile. So what this map could show is over-representation of relatively low-density areas, just as in the US senate small, rural states are overrepresented. Population-based districts could change that, even if the resulting map might look more skewed than this one.
Why exactly do you think that people represent the areas they live in when their constituency is the whole city?
The CD is looking pretty underrepresented…..
The logic was pretty idiotic yesterday and it isn’t any better today.
Prove to me that a council member is more apt to take on problems in their home area more than in other areas. I don’t see it. Conlin lives in Madrona and close to the CD and he hasn’t done more for that area than for any other area (or much of anything, as far as i can tell).
Again, a pothole in QA or downtown is gonna get fixed faster than a pothole in Beacon Hill.
But then again, Erica thought Chief Gil as a genius and deserved a promotion to drug czar.
“What neighborhood representation problem would carving up the city into four (or nine) geographical districts solve?”
The representation problem between the haves and the have nots?
It’s about money, not geography: making it possible for grassroots campaigns to reach most voters, which is nearly impossible in citywide races. This doesn’t mean that grassroots campaigns will emerge all over, or that they will always win. It means that they can have a fighting chance, which would be better than the system we currently have, where money dominates everything.
Wouldn’t this increase the chance of getting a right winger from Magnolia or Queen Anne?
Just because council members live in a wide distribution of neighborhoods doesn’t mean that they would each necessarily be elected if the council implemented a district-based system. The main argument for district elections to me is that it provides a greater opportunity for a more unique, broad group of citizens who will bring to government a wide array of differing viewpoints. When everybody runs citywide, you’re going to see the same sort of candidates elected for each office the vast majority of the time: establishment liberals. This is what causes city government to be such an echo chamber and forces the mayoral election to be run on personality with nearly all the potential aspirants cut from the same cloth. Were the council carved into districts and the number of seats extended to provide more local accountability, I think the council would be much more diverse in both style and substance.
@6 – yes.
Which is why districts are very very bad.
Then again, you’d probably have a less wussy city council …
Actually, if you wanted to be serious about this issue, the council should be reduced from 9 to 5 members, with those 5 members elected by district. The council is bloated and badly in need of change.
u-dist also underrepresented.
I’m always surprised more people don’t point out that we elect EVERY OTHER LEGISLATIVE LEVEL of political office as a district-based office (except federal senators, I suppose.) County, State legislature, Congress. We don’t expect them to be at-large, why our City Council?