Welcome to my new contributor, Mr. Roeder Peabody! (I'm Sure you'll like him.)
Prior to charter review in 2005, Steve Martini (a successful attorney and best-selling author) did extensive research into a potential legal case against the county because of county-wide voting. He found quite a bit of case-law from the '50s and '60s civil rights challenges in the south, where good ol' white boys had a system of so-called "representation" set up in a manner that prevented voting blacks from getting majorities in elections, and like Whatcom County, the system was geographically stacked against the blacks (in our case, against rural conservatives). Although Mr. Martini believed going to district- only was a step in the right direction, he felt there was legal precedence to go much further in creating a charter that truly represented and respected the spectrum of political opinion around the county. However, family and health problems prevented him from pursuing this further in a legal venue.
Along these lines, County Councilman Sam Crawford made a presentation to the Charter Review Commission, meeting in 2005, the the county should go from 3 council districts to 5. Two districts would be comprised of the city of Bellingham, which has 2/5 of the county population. Three districts would be comprised of the remainder of Whatcom County. Of course, voting would be district only, and we would be assured of true representation on the County council for the entire population.
If you think about the makeup of the current council, weighed against where they live, you might surmise we could have a very different council, very soon, as a result of creating this much fairer system.Suffice to say that Brenner's current proposal is clearly a step backward. Councilman Crawford's proposal, as outlined above, may still be seen as the fairest method of achieving a better form of county-wide self-government with true representation of the citizens.
(How do you Like Roeder Peabody? Let me know if I should ask him to write again. I finally got someone knowledgable to write an article for me. It hope that it happens more often.)
Prior to charter review in 2005, Steve Martini (a successful attorney and best-selling author) did extensive research into a potential legal case against the county because of county-wide voting. He found quite a bit of case-law from the '50s and '60s civil rights challenges in the south, where good ol' white boys had a system of so-called "representation" set up in a manner that prevented voting blacks from getting majorities in elections, and like Whatcom County, the system was geographically stacked against the blacks (in our case, against rural conservatives). Although Mr. Martini believed going to district- only was a step in the right direction, he felt there was legal precedence to go much further in creating a charter that truly represented and respected the spectrum of political opinion around the county. However, family and health problems prevented him from pursuing this further in a legal venue.
Along these lines, County Councilman Sam Crawford made a presentation to the Charter Review Commission, meeting in 2005, the the county should go from 3 council districts to 5. Two districts would be comprised of the city of Bellingham, which has 2/5 of the county population. Three districts would be comprised of the remainder of Whatcom County. Of course, voting would be district only, and we would be assured of true representation on the County council for the entire population.
If you think about the makeup of the current council, weighed against where they live, you might surmise we could have a very different council, very soon, as a result of creating this much fairer system.Suffice to say that Brenner's current proposal is clearly a step backward. Councilman Crawford's proposal, as outlined above, may still be seen as the fairest method of achieving a better form of county-wide self-government with true representation of the citizens.
(How do you Like Roeder Peabody? Let me know if I should ask him to write again. I finally got someone knowledgable to write an article for me. It hope that it happens more often.)
2 comments:
Congratulations on your new addition to the group. If I were an expert on anything I might apply for a position.
Mr. Peabody seems like a good addition and I like his position on districts. I'll look forward to read more from him.
Thats an interesting point and I'd like to hear more specifics about it. Maybe it's because I've been playing the Redistricting Game again recently, but I'd like to see any new council district map proposal if you've got it.
I hate to give the impression that I agree with anything that Crawford says (it would ruin my lefty cred), but I'm intrigued by the idea.
PPP: Keep Peabody around, it's nice to have new people who know what's going on. Not too many, though, if there's an influx of people who actually know what they're talking about then I'll have to go back to getting by on my looks.
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