Spring Branch ISD officials plan to appeal last month’s federal ruling that the district violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by holding at-large elections, the board president said Monday night after an executive session discussion.
While awaiting the appeal, the district must comply with the court order by choosing a preferred plan for how to create geographic representation districts on the board. The district’s attorneys will submit an election map to the court on June 6 with five single-member districts and two at-large positions, Board President Board President Lisa Alpe wrote in a letter to the community Tuesday.
“Drafts of this map remain confidential right now because they have not been fully finalized. The final proposed map will be published on SBISD’s website and social media channels when it is filed with the court on June 6. If the court approves SBISD’s proposed map, the district will then develop a transition plan to adjust its election procedures to implement the new system,” Alpe’s statement says.
It would likely not be finalized until next school year.
[…]
Alpe wrote to the community last week that the district appeal to defend its at-large system.
“The at-large system promotes teamwork and reduces territorialism. It ensures that EVERY trustee is accountable to EVERY student, parent, and constituent, ALL the time. It discourages trustees from fighting over resources for “their” part of the district. The voters recognize that SBISD is one school district, and the current Board intends to fight to keep it that way. We will respect the will of the voters and appeal this case at the first opportunity,” the district statement said.
[…]
Once the district sends the details of their plan back to the court, the plaintiff can file one round of objections to the plan, but then they will have to settle on the districts, at which point Spring Branch ISD will be prohibited from conducting at-large elections in the future and must have elected trustees represent geographic districts, barring any effects of the appeal process.
The appeal will not cost the district money because the legal fees are covered by the Texas Association of School Boards’ pool risk, officials said.
See here for the previous update. I was told about this decision last week by Diane Alexander, who attended the board meeting that followed the verdict and the May election. I didn’t see a news story before Tuesday, I suppose they hadn’t formally announced the decision before then. Barring action from the appeals court, the next election should feature the new districts. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.
PREFERRED: PREFERENCE VOTING
It would be nice if the “preferred plan” could be single transferrable vote (STV), more commonly known as ranked-choice voting (RCV) in the goode olde U.S.A. It would make it unnecessary to engage in race-based or Hispanic-surname based, not to mention partisan gerrymandering.
With 5-7 positions in a district it would be feasible. The Mediterranean island nation of Malta (formerly a crown colony of Britain, now independent and in the EU) with roughly a 1/3 of the population of Houston ISD has been using STV for decades.
This system is compatible with both polarized partyline voting and cross-party (nonpartisan) voting. Ireland and Australia use it too. And it maximizes the ability of engaged citizens (ie, voters who show up) to shape the outcome (composition of the elective body, so here, school board) in a way to better represent the diversity of the community, rather than a majority taking it all and ruling ruthlessly.
Candidates can choose whether to stress their party affiliation or not, or whether to use other demographic characteristics, like sex or attached/unattached earlobes, black, white, purple or otherly tinted hair, braids/beard/neither/variable or skinhead, etc. They can also darken or lighten their appearance with photoshop tools, or go without visuals altogether and cater to specific constituencies that don’t have majority status.
If male candidates fear the female-dominated local electorate, they can promote themselves with middle initials only even in the current system. But they wouldn’t be subject to the tyranny of the majority under STV. That’s the beauty of the STV system.
How do you win?
If there are -say- five positions, you win with all ballots cast/5 plus 1, which gives you the quota, which is the number if votes needed to get you a seat. So, you can win with 20%. Unallocated positions are then filled with the second-ranked choices on the eliminated candidates’ ballots, and then third-ranked choice until all slots are filled.
The lowest-scoring candidates (on first preferences) get eliminated first.
ISSUE VOTING TOO
The eduboard candidates could, of course, also run on issue position, like banning vintage editions of Playboy or Playgirl from school libraries, or the Bible, Talmud, Koran, or the Little Red Book, My Kampf, and the Green Book.
Mémoires de la vie privée de B.F. [Private Life of the 100-Dollar Ladies’ Man, the original one]. Perhaps that one too. Who is going to object what with having to learn French first to savor it.
Whatever your love and hate preference, take your pick!
All you need is 20% of the voters to agree with you enough to support you.
Okay, never mind the Green Book. Texas lawyers might get offended.
Who even knows what continent Libya is on? Or that Ronnie aka The Gipper sent some bombs his way. Misson code name: El Dorado Canyon.
How could we even (pre)exist without Wikipedia?!
Another approach would be to allow voters when selecting 3 candidates to give all three of their votes to a single candidate, split them 1 and 2, or give one to three separate candidates. This might allow groups who feel left out to achieve representation on the board. The problem with race or ethnicity based geographic districts in an area like Houston, is that the district boundaries must be contorted to capture little pockets of voters of a particular race or ethnicity, since folks of each race/ethnicity are so dispersed geographically. This is why CD 18 is shaped the way it is. and CD 29.