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Seattle Times
Panel: Seattle should keep council election
methods
By Bob Young
August 12, 2003
Seattle should not change the way it elects City Council members,
according to a citizen panel that spent four months studying the
issue. But that finding won't stop others from trying to replace
Seattle's current system of electing all council members citywide
with one that chooses them to represent geographic districts. A
16-member advisory panel appointed by the City Council presented its
report yesterday on various options for electing local lawmakers.
The group concluded there wasn't sufficient reason to change
Seattle's existing system, which has been in place since 1910.
"There was an absence of persuasive evidence that the system needed
to be changed," said Brewster Denny, a panel member and University
of Washington professor. But the panel warned council members that
the public perceives problems with the council, and they are partly
blamed on the current electoral system. The problems include lack of
access to council members, lack of council responsiveness, the high
cost of campaigning and the lack of diversity on the council. "I
urge the council to look at the public anger and frustration, where
it's coming from and where it's going to," said panel member Roger
Valdez, manager of the Seattle/King County Tobacco Prevention
Program. Jay Sauceda, co-chairman of the Seattle Districts Now
campaign, said public opinion could be improved if council members
were elected from nine geographic districts rather than at-large.
That change would bring council members closer to voters and make
them more accountable and responsive, he said. Sauceda also said it
would cost less to run if City Council candidates did not have to
campaign citywide. District proponents are trying to put a charter
amendment on the November ballot. They need to collect about 6,500
more signatures to qualify, Sauceda said. He hopes they will have
the required total of 25,842 valid signatures certified by the end
of August. Panel members unanimously agreed that they did not like
district elections. "That's a very powerful statement," said panel
member Randy Revelle, a former councilman and King County executive.
Dividing the council into nine geographic wards might cause several
problems, according to the panel's 14-page report. It could lead the
council to focus on smaller neighborhood issues, increase the
influence of special interests and eliminate good candidates when
more than one lives in the same district. But Sauceda dismissed the
panel's findings as biased, saying the council "stacked the deck"
with opponents of district elections. "I don't think districts will
be a panacea, but on the whole they will be a better system," he
said. Four panel members endorsed a minority report that supported
a "proportional representation" system for electing council members.
Under this method, voters would rank several candidates by order of
preference. The goal is to have representatives mirror voters as
much as possible, so that like-minded voters who constitute 30
percent of the electorate, for example, would have the ability to
elect roughly 30 percent of the officials. Bob Young: 206-464-2174 or
[email protected]
On the Web: The advisory
panel's report: www.cityofseattle.net/council/electionsfinalreport.pdf
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