Downtown leadership has thrown everything but the kitchen sink (no doubt its coming soon) in an attempt to defeat Issue One. The disinformation, deceit, and lies are like nothing we have seen in a local ballot issue campaign.
The process of joining council has become a running joke. It goes like this: a council-member steps down before the end of a term and is replaced by someone appointed by the remaining members. Then, running with the benefit of incumbency, the new member gets elected as part of a team of candidates.
The problem with this process is that it denies potential candidates a level playing field. It also denies the public an opportunity to choose from candidates who are put through the rigors of an actual campaign. This strategy is effective at keeping power centralized and in the hands of the council president and the mayor. But it comes at a cost.
Because a citywide election is expensive, city council members rely heavily on wealthy donors, and often these donors are developers, municipal contractors or others with commercial interests. Wealthy donors love democracy like the rest of us, but does any serous minded adult not recognize that these contributions come with expectations of greater access and sometime more? Not if they have been paying attention to city hall for the past few years.
Issue One will not remove these problems completely but the benefits are significant and go a long way in righting the ship. Campaigns become much more competitive because they are much less expensive. The value of appointed incumbency is reduced. The value of grassroots campaigning increases. Currently you cannot run a serious campaign for Columbus City Council without running television ads. Television ads are expensive and require lots of campaign money — often times hundreds of thousands of dollars. Where does this money come from? Hello wealthy developer on line one.
Our at-large system requires candidates to reach upwards of 800,000 people. There is no way around expensive TV ads. Compare this with the Issue One proposal of districts of 85,000 people. Knocking door-to-door, interacting with voters, and being seen at community events increases in value when the voting pool is only 85,000 voters. Grassroots campaigning becomes more important than or equal to TV advertising.
The powers that be don’t like this proposal. It upsets the status quo. This includes our current city leadership and the “organized” Democratic Party. While it would be preferable to engage in an honest and fair exchange of ideas, the “Vote No” camp seems to prefer to engage in hyperbole and misinformation.
For example, the “Vote No” crowd seeks to portray this as an expensive budget buster. Yet in truth, Issue One does not mention or address compensation or staffing levels for each council member. The fact that each council member draws a salary close to $75,000 (including benefits) per year and is served by two full-time aides has been a fact brought to light by this proposal.
The “Vote No” crowd suggest the process by which boundaries will be drawn is a problem. “SHOW ME THE MAP” they say. Yet, with only one exception (Seattle), district maps on a local, statewide and national level are drawn only after population growth is determined by decennial census.
A legitimate criticism of this process would be directed toward the criteria by which district maps are drawn. Typically the political party in power uses only one criteria — keeping or increasing their own majority. Issue One seeks to prevent such partisan gamesmanship. Line twelve of the proposal “…mandates districts be contiguous, compact and to the extent practical, follow streets, waterways, geographic boundaries, communities, and neighborhoods.”
Over 39,600 of our fellow citizens signed the petition to place Issue One before voters. This proposal is the largest citizen led initiative in our city’s history. This fact alone warrants a more thoughtful and honest debate. Based on their actions thus far the establishment and downtown leadership have no interest in being thoughtful or honest.
I was the Franklin County Democratic Party’s nominee for Court of Appeals in 2004. I’ve served on screening committees, volunteered for several Democratic campaigns, and raised money for Democratic candidates. I am a proud Democrat and I am voting YES on Issue One August 2nd.
– Thomas Tootle
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