Why I'm voting against Austin's Proposition J

[thefuturemesozoic]

For Austin voters, the following question will appear on the ballot in November, as Proposition J, in response to a citizen petition:

Shall a City ordinance be adopted to require both a waiting period and subsequent voter approval period, a total of up to three years, before future comprehensive revisions of the City's land development code become effective?

At first glance, this may appear to be an innocuous, pro-democracy proposition. After all, a direct vote by the people is surely the purest form of democracy and a good way to hold our elected City Councilors accountable. It is true that we live in a representative democracy, and not all decisions can be voted on directly by the people, but surely a change as fundamental as revising the city's land development code should be put to a popular vote before going into effect. However, it is worth keeping in mind that not all legislative decisions--even large decisions--are directly voted on by the public, nor would many people consider such votes to be desirable in all cases, and elected officials are already held accountable at the ballot box. If politicians make unpopular decisions, then they will face tough questions if they run for reelection or run for other positions in the future. Additionally, referenda favor demographic groups that are more likely to turn out to vote in large numbers, potentially disenfranchising groups that are less likely to turn out. Finally, since some changes require a popular vote and some changes do not, it is worth considering whether requiring a referendum is likely to tip the scales against the kinds of changes that we would want to see.

I was living in Massachusetts in 2004, when the state Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples had the right to be married. There were attempts to introduce a Constitutional amendment to overrule the Supreme Court decision, which would have ultimately required a popular vote. The state's Roman Catholic bishops wrote a letter to the state legislature where they endorsed putting the question to a popular vote, arguing that "the marriage debate should not be reserved only to lawyers and lawmakers. Every citizen has a stake in the outcome because every citizen has a stake in the well-being of the family." Others, meanwhile, argued against a referendum, saying that it was wrong to write discrimination into the state Constitution and that civil rights should never be subject to a popular vote. Though there was a successful petition to trigger a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, votes were also required in the state legislature before the amendment could be placed on the ballot, and the proposed amendment ultimately died in the legislature. Calls to "let the people decide" are generally put forward not by dispassionate advocates of direct democracy but by groups who want an enacted or proposed change to be voted down. So it was with same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. So it is in Austin with rewriting the land development code. If we are concerned about availability of housing for people who aren't affluent and who didn't buy into the Austin market years ago, when housing was affordable, perhaps because they weren't in a position to make a down payment and/or weren't grown adults yet, then we may want to vote against this proposition. Imagine a campaign to require that Obamacare be approved by the voters in 2/3 of the states before it could go into effect, and that the people saying that Obama and the Democrats needed to "let the people decide" were the same people spreading dire warnings about the death panels hidden within.

Additionally, it does not make sense to take a complex piece of legislation and place it on the ballot for an up-or-down vote. Elected officials are tasked with diving into such legislation, making amendments and compromises as they see fit. Voters can only approve or reject the finished legislation. How should a "no" vote be interpreted? Should the legislation be tweaked, or scrapped entirely? In 2017, the Austin Chronicle gave its endorsements for the local bond packages and state Constitutional amendments. For the proposed amendment to amend the law governing home equity loans, the editors wrote, "[t]he amendment would revise several complicated provisions of home equity law – lowering maximum interest rates while enabling other fees, allowing a shift to less restrictive home loans, loosening refinancing standards, and opening home equity loans to agricultural homesteads. This seems a textbook example of legislation that does not belong in a constitution, nor on a ballot."

In 2014, the number of votes cast varied greatly from one City Council district to another, although the districts are roughly equivalent to one another in terms of total population. More votes were cast in district 10 than in districts 2, 3, and 4 put together. Although district 6 had the lowest voter turn-out, the districts with the next lowest levels of voter turn-out were districts 3, 2, 4, and 1, respectively. Thus, out of the five districts with lower voter turn-out, four were black or Hispanic opportunity districts. If a referendum on land use regulations appears on the ballot and voter turn-out is similar to voter turn-out in 2014, then more than half of the votes will come from districts 5, 7, 8, and 10, with implications in terms of whose voices would carry the most weight in terms of deciding the outcome. This would move against the intent of moving Austin to a system of single-member districts, rather than the previous system of at-large districts. I should point out, however, that Proposition J is supported by some activists of color, such as Susana Almanza, head of People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources and candidate for City Council district 3, and Nelson Linder, president of the Austin branch of the NAACP.

Our system is already set up in various ways to favor car-centric sprawl over compact development centered around transit. By state law, if the city of Austin's transit agency wants to construct light rail, then it must take its plan to the voters, even if it is able to pay for the construction with existing revenue and not raise taxes, as would have been the case in 2000. In contrast, plans to build or widen highways require no referendum. Proposition J, if passed and not ruled illegal, would add more points at which changes to the land development code can be vetoed, as is its intention. This would further tilt the scale towards inertia, against any kind of change. Over the past few decades, we have seen Austin grow rapidly, with nearly all of the growth on the outskirts of the city. We have not seen increased transit ridership in proportion with our growth. Austin is increasingly becoming unaffordable for low and moderate-income residents. If we pass Prop. J, effectively allowing the more affluent parts of Austin to veto any kind of comprehensive change, then it is easy to imagine current trends continuing unabated. That being said, the legality of the proposition is in question and was not addressed by the court decision that ordered the proposition to be placed on the ballot, so the referendum may ultimately be ineffective even if it passes.