Posted July 4, 200816 yr Cincinnati played an important role in the creation of a Proportional Representation system form of elections. In 1925 the system was used to get rid of the Republican Party political machine at the time led by the notorious Boss Cox. Republicans were able to reverse this effort in 1957 and get rid of Proportional Representation. There is a new effort now by the Cincinnati chapter of the NAACP to restore Proportional Representation. The NAACP hopes to have enough signatures to get it put on the November ballot. What are the thoughts on this from everybody?
July 4, 200816 yr Cincinnati NAACP to kick off proportional representation drive http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2008/06/30/daily45.html
July 5, 200816 yr I think that proportional representation would be fine, so long as the voters still get to vote for all nine councilmembers. I strongly oppose district representation on council. Cincinnati played an important role in the creation of a Proportional Representation system form of elections. In 1925 the system was used to get rid of the Republican Party political machine at the time led by the notorious Boss Cox. Republicans were able to reverse this effort in 1957 and get rid of Proportional Representation. Also, I'm pretty sure George B. "Boss" Cox had died by 1916, and the Republican machine at the time (1925) of charter reform was led by Rudolph Hynicka.
August 21, 200816 yr NAACP submits petitions to change City Council elections The Cincinnati NAACP announced it has collected 15,352 signatures on petitions to force a vote to change the way Cincinnati City Council is elected. The branch supports the return of the proportional representation system and collected the signatures to place the issue on the Nov. 4 ballot. Proportional representation allows voters to rank their candidates from 1 to 9, giving preferred candidates more weight in the vote. NAACP chapter President Christopher Smitherman called the method simple and said it “captures the true intent of the voters.” The local chapter’s general membership voted to support the change at its meeting in June. Read More...
September 19, 200816 yr Issue 8 deserves voters’ OK Business Courier of Cincinnati - Editorial A “yes” vote for the proportional representation issue - Issue 8 - on the Nov. 4 ballot would change the way Cincinnati voters elect members of City Council, allowing them to weigh their choices instead of the current winner-takes-all system where the top nine vote-getters win seats on council. We think every Cincinnati voter should cast a “yes” vote on this issue, ensuring that city government continue its reforming activities. (We count the hiring of City Manager Milton Dohoney as one of those recent reforms. The way council has cooperated with Hamilton County to get the Banks project started is another.) Regarding the proportional representation issue, most reform-minded advocates think it is the method to return to – although many of them fear process and performance issues on Election Day in 2009, when the new system will first be used if passed this November. Cincinnati used the proportional representation system from 1926 to 1956. Read More...
October 1, 200816 yr Republicans Agree With Dems: No On Proportional Representation Democrats and Republicans seldom agree. But on this, they are united: Neither party wants City Council elected by proportional representation. The Hamilton County Republican Party voted unanimously last week to oppose Issue 8 on the November ballot, which would switch the city from its current at-large voting system and return it to a weighted system of electing council members. Just days earlier, the Cincinnati Democratic Committee voted overwhelmingly to oppose proportional representation (known informally as PR). Both parties have also now opposed the proposed charter ban on red light cameras in the city. Read More...
October 27, 200816 yr Council voting could go retro Proportional representation can seem complicated Cincinnati voters will get the chance to return to the city's former way of electing city council members - proportional representation, or PR. But first, they need to understand it. And that's not going to be easy. If proponents including the NAACP and We Demand A Vote are successful, city voters in 2009 would still vote for up to nine candidates. But they'd rank their favorites in order, giving organized minority groups and any candidate with a big enough bloc of supporters or a key galvanizing issue a better chance of winning. Read More...
October 27, 200816 yr I don't understand the need to change the current system of electing council members. It sounds to me that someone is whining that he or his friends weren't elected, so he wants to change the way the election is handled. This also seems to add another layer of complication to the process. If things are made too complicated, I wonder if people would feel discouraged from voting.
October 27, 200816 yr what would be the reason for reinstating this? I'm not getting that from any of the articles
October 27, 200816 yr Even though this is being nominally put forward to increase A/A representation, it would like maintain or perhaps even increase GOP representation, because they could put a bunch of 1 and 2 as GOP's, whereas A/A's and Democrats more generally would tend to take a whole list in different orders.
October 28, 200816 yr Even though this is being nominally put forward to increase A/A representation, it would like maintain or perhaps even increase GOP representation, because they could put a bunch of 1 and 2 as GOP's, whereas A/A's and Democrats more generally would tend to take a whole list in different orders. If that's the case, why does the GOP AND Dems oppose this?
October 28, 200816 yr It was pushed by the NAACP and Smitherman. It messes up their plans for power and has the potential to scare off voters through it complexity.
October 31, 200816 yr I don't feel like those behind this push have really argued their case all that well. First, people are being told that it's confusing and then when asked to explain, the advocates of this method just say that you rank your choices 1-9. Okay, but how does it work where you don't get your first choice but it slides down to your second? I think the people in favor of proportional representation have done a terrible job of explaining it. If it's as easy as suggested, then it should be easy to explain.
October 31, 200816 yr It was pushed by the NAACP and Smitherman. It messes up their plans for power and has the potential to scare off voters through it complexity. It's also being pushed by COAST, the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, who never seem to oppose the additional spending (and the tax revenue that must pay for it) that accompanies their frequent ballot initiatives. It is basically the next step in the alliance of two rather outsized and egotistical personalities, Christopher Smitherman on the left and Chris Finney on the right. They were pleased with their alliance that helped kill Pepper's jail tax, and this is their next move. It will fail, and perhaps their alliance will as well. Anything that adds to the discredit of either man is a win in my book. The plan is convoluted and unnecessary. The conceit that it is "more democratic" than the current system is specious and authoritarian (it implies that there is one appropriate method of representing any corporate entity, that works independent of that corporations history and esprit. I wouldn't want to have the system they have in the City of Chicago here in Cincinnati, but that doesn't mean that Chicago shouldn't have the system it is comfortable with). The constant refrain that the people of Cincinnati are poorly represented on council because the same people tend to be re-elected isn't accurate and shouldn't be taken at face value. It is equally plausible that our councilors get re-elected because the citizenry is content with the job that they are doing (or at least the councilors who are able to assemble a large enough coalition to get elected are able to maintain said coalition and keep it pleased with their performance), that the citizenry values experience, or any number of other reasonable explanations. The citizenry of Cincinnati is not mindless, as it is often claimed by outlier groups. A perfect example is the case of one Christopher Smitherman elected to council with a broad support (read black & white) in 2003 (dmerkow can attest to this). Smitherman then spent his single council term alienating a portion of the constituency that elected him- hence he was not re-elected in 2005. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out how to get elected to Council in this town, but it does require hard work, planning, and the foresight not to piss off the people who voted for you. Proportional representation is worthless, in my opinion, which is why I voted against it. However, the Jeff Berding plan for district representation is worse. City Council is the governing board of the city corporation. As a resident of the city, I want to be able to vote for each member of the board. It makes no sense to me why dividing the board into five members who are elected from the City at large and four who are elected from districts based on residence increases my sense of representation on council. I know it takes away from the number of board members that I get to vote for, because I can count. This district scheme also doesn't speak to the conceit that people feel more solidarity with their neighborhoods. That they might, but while someone may care passionately about Clifton or Over-the-Rhine or Westwood, I can guarantee that they will have no emotional attachment to Council Elective District #3 (and anyone has even been mildly involved in a state rep or senate campaign can attest to the fact that most people have no idea which of those districts they live in, even though everyone knows what neighborhood, municipality, school district and county they live in). In sum, both proportional representation and district representation are designed to address supposed needs that don't actually exist.
October 31, 200816 yr Pretty much, exactly. PR is hot among political scientists who tend fetishize it, because it so 'fair' and the Europeans use it.
November 6, 200816 yr New election process faces close vote Early results indicated a close vote on whether Cincinnati voters want a new way to elect City Council members. With heavy voter turnout delaying the count, only absentee ballots and 18 percent of the city's 332 precincts had been counted by 11:30 p.m. According to those, almost 53 percent rejected the idea of changing the city's charter to use a proportional representation, or PR, voting system. Voters could still choose up to nine candidates. But they'd rank their favorites in order, giving organized minority groups and any candidate with a big enough bloc of supporters or a key galvanizing issue a better chance of winning. Proponents including NAACP President Christopher Smitherman sold the complicated concept in large part by saying it would be a similar system to how President-elect Barack Obama secured the Democratic nomination, by gathering a proportion of delegates in each state rather than winning or losing in each. Read More...
November 6, 200816 yr Remember what happend when Bush won the election and suddenly everyone was adament about changing the system to favor popular vote??
November 6, 200816 yr Issue 8 for Proportional Representation in Cincinnati failed 54% to 46%. http://data.cincinnati.com/misc/elections/races.aspx?ct=hamilton&rid=45
November 6, 200816 yr Issue 8 for Proportional Representation in Cincinnati failed 54% to 46%. http://data.cincinnati.com/misc/elections/races.aspx?ct=hamilton&rid=45
November 6, 200816 yr Can we just leave things alone for a generation or two? The problems of the city are not connected to the structure of gov't.
