The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
The issue of Tucson City Council elections, with their primaries by ward and elections citywide, never seems to go away. In the early part of the century, Jonathan Paton tried to make a change at the state level. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge, and in 2019 John Holden and a group of volunteers attempted to collect enough signatures to put an initiative on the ballot but ran out of time.
The current method of electing members of the City Council dates to the original city charter of 1929. Few would argue the system of primaries by ward, with the general election held citywide, was not set up by ethnic Anglos to disenfranchise Latinos.
The primary-by-ward was a fig leaf that would allow Latinos on the ballot, while the citywide general election would see to it they lost. The Anglo majority ruled the roost, and there was little incentive for the representative of the majority Latino ward(s) to concern himself with his constituents.
I recently acquired a book about a third political party (Iβm a third-party guy myself). Itβs about the La Raza Unido Partido (RUP), and tells the story of a party formed by disaffected Latinos who saw both the Democratic and Republican parties as part of the same oppressive power structure.
The book is βLa Raza Unida Party: A Chicano Challenge to the U.S. Two-Party Dictatorshipβ by Armando Navarro.
Of particular interest to me was the story of Cristal, Texas. It was there that the RUP affected a βPeaceful Revolution.β In 1970, the Cristal population consisted of upper and middle classes of both Anglos and Latinos, and a large underclass of Latinos.
RUP organized poor Latinos and Latino students to support, and vote for, RUP candidates. In the same election, RUP candidates won seats on both the school board and the town council.
Interestingly, though the seats did not produce a majority, a major-party Latino on the school board and major-party Latino on the town council flipped, giving RUP a majority in both arenas. Then the purges began.
According to Navarro, βRUPβs takeover kicked off the βbrowningβ of Cristalβs city administration. ... A systematic purge of Whites occurred. So much pressure was exerted by RUP that most Whites resigned β some in protest β than be fired.β
As for the schools, βWhat ensued was a systemic, orchestrated purge of White administrators, teachers, and staff, and Mexicanos who were not supportive of RUP.β
So, the Anglos of Tucson rigged a system to suppress Latinos in 1929; Latinos commandeer a system to suppress Anglos in Cristal, Texas, in 1970; and Tucson Democrats maintain the rigged 1929 system to suppress Republicans today. The common denominator here is not the nature of the perpetrators, but rather the willingness of people β all people β to abuse power.
For these reasons, our government is structured to avoid concentrations of power. Our courts, legislatures and executives have limited and defined powers and are not subservient to the other branches.
The more that power is distributed among the people and their communities, rather than some super-smart central planning omnipotent leader, the better.
Even our local municipalities are not monolithic, which we assume is why we subdivide them into wards. If we are to have wards, should not the residents of those wards get to choose their representative? If so, then we should dump our current citywide system and let the people choose.
The following is for Democrats only:
So, the citywide aspect gives you a majority on the council. Republicans have been whining about it for decades. We both know that the Republicans have a point in that the system suppresses minority (Republican in this case) representation.
Iβve been examining the website of the Pima County Recorderβs Office and guess what? There are no wards with Republican voter majorities anymore! Even far-east-side Ward 4 has a Democrat majority.
Itβs small, but it is a majority, and the trend citywide continues on an ever-increasing Democratic majority. This means that you no longer need the fix provided by the citywide elections to keep control of the council.
You can now take the initiative from the Republicans and switch from citywide to ward-only council elections while pointing out that citywide has its roots in white racism.
You get the kudos and the Republicans lose an issue. I know it will take a charter change, but youβre Democrats! You can do this!
