Seattle District Elections

The owners/editorial board of the Seattle Times, most of whom live outside of Seattle, continue to campaign against district elections for the Seattle city council:

Seattleites who believe in one city working together, one city tackling problems with partners throughout the region, should vote down Charter Amendment 5.

Representation by districts would, by definition, compel council members to focus on the traffic circle down the street rather than a broader, regional transportation fix that could substantially improve the commute.

Imagine that, a group of suburbanites arguing that Seattle's city council should focus on regional issues instead of city issues.

The editorial also recycles the bogus claims from Joni Balter's recent anti-district editorial which I dismantled here. Example:

After citywide elections were abandoned in San Francisco, seats held by minorities and women decreased.

As I documented in my earlier fisking, that is not a factually correct statement. This statement is also unsupported by the facts:

The message from San Francisco, which recently adopted district elections, is don't do it.

In fact, the only serious attempt to repeal San Francisco's district elections since they were adopted was dropped before it got off the ground, because it had little popular support.

Although the Seattle Times as an institution and its suburban owner/executives have their own agenda to oppose district elections, there are many good reasons why actual Seattleites should welcome district elections. I discussed them here.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 24, 2003 09:57 AM