Tuesday, March 5, 2013
An At-Large Risk
Posted by Abdul-Hakim Shabazz @AttyAbdul on Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 4:00 AM
There is an old saying in politics that if you stick around long enough, you will eventually see everything. Once again, that adage proves to be true. I am talking about SB 621. It's a piece of legislation making its way through the Indiana General Assembly which would streamline/reorganize/functionally consolidate parts of Marion County Government. It would give the Mayor more budgetary control, allow him to pick his appointments without Council approval, and it would also eliminate the at-large City-County Council members.
Now as you can guess, Democrats are screaming bloody murder on this one. And I don't blame them. Right now, because of the at-large City-County Council members, they enjoy a 16-13 advantage. And for the record, if Senate Bill 621 were to pass the at-larges would not be eliminated until 2015. And that does not mean Republicans would have a 13-12 advantage because new Council maps will be in place by then.
What's funny about this is the moaning and gnashing of teeth that is coming out of Democratic circles. During the committee hearing on SB 621, at-large member Pam Hickman equated the GOP members of the panel to being Nazis engaging in a power grab. (By the way Pam, that didn't help matters much and in fact made some folks who were agnostic about the bill come out in favor of it.) But here is the kicker, Democrats are complaining that by getting rid of the at-larges, Republican lawmakers are reducing representation. I think this is the part where I say something about a pot calling a kettle African-American.
Allow me to elaborate, when Democrats took over the Council in 2012, one of the first things they did was alter the makeup of Council committees. Where the committee make up, with a couple exceptions, used to be 5-4 (majority-minority party) they changed it to 6-3, reducing the amount of representation by Republicans and in turn reducing the voices of the GOP's constituents. However, I don't recall Councilor Hickman making any Hitler references at the time. I guess that only happens when the jackboot is on the other foot.
And the fun doesn't stop there. You know how the Democrats are paying for their lawsuit against the Mayor to have his Council maps thrown out? They cut the budget of the Republicans for their Council attorney. Yup. You see both the Democrats and Republicans on the Council get an attorney to help them draft ordinances and provide legal advice. By cutting the GOP's budget, Republicans can't get as much legal representation as they did before and therefore can't serve their constituents as well.
And if that still doesn't give you a synonym for HIGHprocrisy, here's another: A couple decades ago, black democrats sued the city to get rid of the at-larges, saying they violated the Voting Rights Act because the diluted minority voting strength in Marion County.
So what exactly am I saying here? Am I advocating for the removal of the at-larges? Well, there is an argument to be made that there may be too many Council members. I did some quick checking on the Internet and found that while Indianapolis is the 12th largest city in America, only two larger cities — New York City and Chicago — have larger city councils than Indy's 29-member body. Los Angeles, which has nearly 4 million people, has 15 members, and Philadelphia has 17 for a population of 1.5 million. San Diego, which is closest in population to Indianapolis at 945,000 people, only has 11 members on its Council. Maybe there is something to be said about doing more with less. It sure beats faux outrage and calling people Nazis, don't you think?
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