In a recent column, columnist Bob Dunning argues that the district elections solution “only makes things worse.” The trouble is – he is possibly correct on this point. The council opted to go with the most “vanilla” configuration they could find and seemed more concerned with getting representation for South Davis than maximizing representation for underrepresented groups like people of color or students.
Mr. Dunning writes that district elections is “a concept that all five City Council members strongly opposed and yet a concept that all five City Council members voted to implement.”
On this point, I think Mr. Dunning has done the largest disservice to the community that reads his column. There remains within the community segments who believe that the city should have fought this. What they fail to recognize is that cities with a far lower percentage of people of color have attempted to do so, only to lose – at very great costs.
I have yet to see the opinion from an attorney with experience in this recommend fighting as the way forward.
However, Mr. Dunning is on safer ground breaking down the districts.
“Which district has been designated as an ‘Asian’ district and which has been designated as a ‘Latino’ district is unclear,” he writes. “These districts were drawn under the dubious presumption that all members of an ethnic group will vote exclusively for a member of their own ethnic group.
“But, if you do the math, that faulty line of reasoning would lead to each district electing a white person to the council, given that there is a solid white majority in every district,” he continues. “In other words, if Davis truly has racially polarized voting as charged — we don’t — this district map virtually guarantees an all-white City Council every time we have an election.”
He notes that, in the most favorable district for an Asian candidate, “only 29 percent of the population is Asian. And there’s no guarantee that a Latino candidate or an Asian candidate will even 
run for office in either of those districts.”
He adds, “Add that to the fact that in a district election a candidate must be the top vote-getter to gain a seat, while in a citywide election, placing second and sometimes third is enough to get elected.”
He later argues: “The problem here is that Davis doesn’t have a majority population of Asians or Latinos in one specific area of town, which makes the whole notion of district elections folly.”
Bob Dunning, like Mayor Pro Tem Gloria Partida, has a point. But it’s not the whole story.
First of all, council never made it a priority to maximize representation for people of color. Instead, they drew a map which I would call fairly vanilla. It was a straight up map. It was drawn to keep neighborhoods together. It was drawn to make sure that South Davis had a representative. It was not drawn to make sure either Asians or Latinos had representatives.
Second, among the available maps, we know for instance Map 7-5, the one I favored actually, had the potential of a minority-majority district, with another district that was just 53 percent white. Would that have guaranteed representation for either group? Of course not.
The concept of Racially Polarized Voting does not mean that people of color only vote for people who look like them.
Keep in mind what national voting patterns look like. Across the nation, whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians all have distinct voting patterns. People of color tend to vote for the Democrats. Whites tend to vote for Republicans. Like it or not, the most powerful determination of how someone is going to vote is their race and ethnicity.
The point was made to me by one of the councilmembers that Asians and Latinos are not necessarily going to prefer the same candidate. That may be true. But we know that, nationally, Latinos voted for Hillary Clinton by about 65 percent of the vote. That’s about the same percentage of Asians who voted for Clinton.
Meanwhile, whites heavily voted for Republicans including Trump.
Does that mean that Latinos and Asians were going to vote for a Latino or Asian candidate? No. But it does mean that they get more of a say in who they do get to vote for.
Third, we never got to see a district map that was optimized to maximize minority representation. We saw some that had heavily renter-majority districts – this wasn’t one of them – but not one specifically drawn to maximize people of color.
Finally, a very important point has been missing in this – the mechanism to improve representation by people of color is not just about numerical numbers, but also the barrier to access.
Going from at-large to five districts means, instead of dealing with a huge 65,000 or so person electorate, each district will have about 13,000 people. Going to seven would have meant about 9000 or so people per district.
That means that to win a seat before required at least 7000 votes, and maybe as many as 11,000. Now you might have to win 3500 votes. With seven districts, it might have been as low as 2000.
An at-large race would cost you a minimum of $20,000 and probably $30,000 to $40,000 to win. Now you might need $5,000 to $10,000.
That is a huge factor. It is going to open up possible competitive campaigns for many people who were priced out.
And now, instead of scrambling with a large organization to walk the city, you only have to walk a portion of the city – and that portion is geographically close to the candidate’s home. District voters are going to have a much higher proportion of “nearby neighbors” than at-large voters. Seven would have been better, but five is still an improvement.
In the end, I thought if we were going to do these districts to improve representation, we should go all the way and do seven districts – lowering barriers and hopefully maximizing the opportunity for students and people of color to win.
We didn’t go that far, but I think Mr. Dunning is underestimating just how much changing the barrier to entry will change things.
—David M .Greenwald reporting
The list above is significantly flawed in its omission of gender as a determining factor. White males tend to vote Republican. White females, not so much.
Disagree Matt. White women still voted for Trump. The gap is less than half the size of the racial gap. The race gap is the defining feature of American politics.
David, look at the graphic Among “Whites” 60% of the men voted Republican but only 49% of women voted Republican. That is a 20% deviation, with the end result that white women voted Democrat just as often as voted Republican (49% vs. 49%), while the white men overwhelmingly voted Republican (60% vs 39%).
Given that 74% of Davis adults have a 4-year college degree, the 59% Democrat vs 39% Republican in that demographic cohort is probably much closer to the Davis voting pattern.
Too bad they also didn’t screen for those who didn’t even grajuate from hi skool… am thinking the numbers would even be more telling…
God grant me the Serenityto accept the things I cannot change;
Courage tochange the things I can;
and the Wisdom toknow the difference.
It’s not all that significant that a district have a majority of non-white voters for minority voters to have a greater impact on election outcomes. Thus, for example, Democrats have had success in recent presidential (Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million) and congressional elections in large part due to black voter turnout and overwhelming support from black voters (particularly black women) despite the fact that blacks, overall, make up only about 12% of the electorate. The same could be true in local district elections, despite the fact that a district is not majority minority to the extent there’s solid support for a minority candidate among non-white voters.
The article is illustrated with a photo and caption of former Davis Vanguard Board member Dillan Horton. Yet he is not mentioned in the article itself. Nor does the article mention that he lives in the same (new) district as two of the existing Council members, and thus will likely be out of luck unless he decides to move to a different district to run from.
Rik, reading is fundamental. Re-read the article and feel free to stop after you have read the first nine words … “Dillan Horton, the only announced challenger, spoke last week”
Matt Williams: yeah, reading IS fundamental. Notice the word “caption” in my first sentence? Please feel free to re-read and stop when you get to that word.
As I pointed out, that is the only mention of Dillan: in an italicized caption for the photo illustrating the article. The body of the article itself does not mention his name, nor does it explain why the photo of him was used.
They. They? As in . . . how about you just call them people, and stop categorizing them into groups.
One people, one vote.
If this smaller group thing is so important, why aren’t people with really, really small groups the most important to represent?
Examples: transexual, or Patwin
If the goal is the smaller groups get represented, then the smaller the group, the more important, until we get to the group of one or less (Patwin transexuals for example).
If anyone deserves representation here, it’s the Patwin. The rest of us can all go to h*ll, really.
You touched on a pertinent point Alan… thx…
The discussion here has focused as to POC (and, no, have no idea where Jews fit in on that metric… they need to self-identify), and renters vs. homeowners… no discussion of POG… People Of Gender… however they self-identify… would argue that the CC is more under representing POG’s than POC’s…
And how about POF’s (People of Faith… be that Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Bahai, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, None of the Above, etc.)…
Or, POE’s (People of Education)…
Not a question for you, Alan, but to the general readership and society… where do we draw the lines (figuratively and literally)? I suspect a Christian/Jewish/Muslim POC has more in common than a white atheist… or, a white supremicist, who may present as professing one belief, but whose behavior is very arguably counter to the tenets of the professed belief system… even 7 or 9 seats on CC cannot cover everyone…
Yet, the focus has been on POC, and renters/students as a surrogate for that. Am thinking Arte Johnson’s character… “Verrrry interesting… but, *****”…
Just a musing…
That’s correct. It’s important to understand the origins of federal and state voting rights laws. While they are intended to protect everyone’s right to vote, it was historically discriminatory practices intended to create barriers to the votes of racial minorities, particularly African Americans— e.g., literacy tests, drawing of district lines, location of polling places, voter ID requirements, and other requirements intended to suppress or dilute the votes of racial minorities—that led to their enactment. So, yes, protecting the voting rights of racial minorities remains the main focus of remedial measures.
You touched on a pertinent point Alan… thx…
The discussion here has focused as to POC (and, no, have no idea where Jews fit in on that metric… they need to self-identify), and renters vs. homeowners… no discussion of POG… People Of Gender… however they self-identify… would argue that the CC is more under representing POG’s than POC’s…
And how about POF’s (People of Faith… be that Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Bahai, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, None of the Above, etc.)…
Or, POE’s (People of Education)…
Not a question for you, Alan, but to the general readership and society… where do we draw the lines (figuratively and literally)? I suspect a Christian/Jewish/Muslim POF/POC has more in common than a white atheist… or, a white supremicist, who may present as professing one belief, but whose behavior is very arguably counter to the tenets of the professed belief system… even 7 or 9 seats on CC cannot cover everyone…
Yet, the focus has been on POC, and renters/students as a surrogate for that. Am thinking Arte Johnson’s character… “Verrrry interesting… but, *****”…
Just a musing…
Dillan,
I will give you $100 bucks to move to South Davis. It’s not a campaign contribution. For tax and political purposes, we’ll call it a “gift”. Sour ducks that you got put in the one district with two incumbents. But you rent so you are probably a bit more flexible than the owner-peeps on council.
Is anyone else with me?!!!!
–Alan
Aw . . . ‘cmon people!
(Maybe a go-fund-him page is in order.)
No, the trouble is that there has been a tear in the space-time continuum and we’re about to get sucked into a worm hole, because the DV agreeing with BD is impossible.
Evidence that district elections may undermine efforts to solve the housing crisis: http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2019/11/should-we-reconsider-district-only-elections/
Interesting… not sure I fully buy the argument, but cannot reject it out of hand, either…
Thx for passing it along… moot, until the law is changed, but good food for thought… will be interesting to see how it plays out in Davis… will take at least 2-3 election cycles to get a good clue…