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City voting two-steps around key questions

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published September 25, 2005

The city of St. Petersburg has an unusual method of electing its City Council, using a two-step dance that starts Tuesday.

In the first round of voting, two finalists are chosen from each district. Only the residents of that district get to vote. (Districts that start out with two or fewer candidates don't have this first election.)

In the second election on Nov. 8, every voter in the city will vote on the finalists from every district. In a sense, each district has only "nominated" its finalists. But the voters of the entire city have the final say.

This forces a candidate to jump through two hoops, pleasing both a district and then the entire city. Many cities require a candidate to do only one of these.

Tampa, for example, has seven seats on its City Council. Four members are elected from local districts. The other three are elected by the entire city. The Pinellas and Hillsborough county commissions work the same way - four members elected by districts, three elected by everybody.

The idea of mixing district and at-large seats is that you get a balance. The district folks are naturally more tuned in to local issues. The countywide or citywide folks are beholden only to the overall good.

You could argue that St. Petersburg's system accomplishes this balance a different way, by making sure a City Council candidate not only is acceptable to his or her neighbors, but to the whole city.

Or you could argue that St. Petersburg's system weakens the voice of individual parts of the city. One of the few hot questions this year is whether that system is potentially racist, since the white citywide majority could choose a white candidate over a black one preferred by African-American voters in a district. This is the subject of a pending lawsuit.

It is not an academic question. The most contested district race on Tuesday might well produce a white challenger to a black City Council incumbent in a district dominated by black voters, setting up a Nov. 8 citywide decision.

St. Petersburg's District 6 includes a big part of the city's African-American population. It is represented by Earnest Williams, an insurance agency owner, an incumbent whose only real political misstep has been to say out loud that he wanted to run for the Legislature next year.

We require our politicians to pretend they are not ambitious. Williams' confession was taken as bad form. He took it back, but he has drawn four challengers: Darden Rice, Dwight "Chimurenga" Waller, Maria Scruggs-Weston and Cassandra Wooten-Jackson.

All are black except Rice. Backers of Waller, a leader of the Uhuru movement, have made a point of saying that Rice has no business representing District 6.

Rice, an organizer for the Sierra Club, has plugged away despite getting attacked for being (1) white and (2) a lesbian, as a hostile questioner made a point of getting her to "admit" the other day. Not that she has made any secret of it. Sheesh.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say that Williams and Rice proceeded to the general election. Then we would have a test of the Uhurus' worry that the white majority will choose a white candidate.

I don't think it's wrong to argue that District 6 would be better represented by a black council member. But I do think it's wrong to say a white person is automatically unqualified just because of skin color.

As for Waller, some folks are horrified at the idea of an Uhuru voice on the council, but consider this: It would mean the guy had to sit through a lot of zoning hearings and would inevitably be drawn into the governance of the city. I bet you that sooner or later some Uhuru leaders would be protesting him.

Four of the city's eight council districts are being contested this year. Only two of them, District 6 and District 4, have enough candidates to require a first round of voting on Tuesday. The District 4 race pits incumbent Virginia Littrell against former council member Leslie Curran and a first-time candidate, Kim Trombley. Who will win? Why, the best-organized and hardest-working campaign, of course.

[Last modified September 25, 2005, 02:15:40]