We support all communities by advocating for elections by city council districts
We support all communities by advocating for elections by city council districts
We are some of the longtime leaders who advocate for Black Columbus. Through this work, we want to educate our community on the urgent need to change Columbus Ohio's corrupt council election format, which requires all council members to run in citywide elections, which is prohibitively expensive, noncompetitive, and not used in any other big city because such systems typically violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965. John Lewis took one for the team on the Edmund Pettus Bridge decades ago, so that geographically-concentrated minorities could elect candis=dates they want, without needing white voters and white money to do so. We want unapologetically Black leadership, where our politicians can have the same conversatinos downtown that they do in our neighborhoods, because we, the voters that support them, have their backs. Given Columbus's history of residential segregation, this method of election is the only one that allows communities of color to elect some candidates of our choosing, without having our votes diluted by the majority of white voters and big monied corporate donors.
The current election system has council members that must live spread across the city in one of nine districts, but voted into office by all the city's voters. That is a crazy system put in place by city council and its loyalists -- it is not a good council format. The only other place this system is in place is in Tucson, Arizona. Every other big city uses true council districts, where councilmembers live in, and are voted upon, by their neighbors -- other residents of that council district.
We have filed a petition that establishes 9 true council districts in Columbus -- including two majority Black council districts, one majority -minority council district, and one district that is 47% minority. Once our proposal is reviewed by the City Attorney, we can circulate it and get signatures. We need to get 13,000 signatures to get it on the ballot for a vote. Other groups are also seeking to change council, but they don't want to change the current "Residential Districts" now -- all of those fake districts are majority white populations (likely in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965). They will continue to suppress Black political power. If this is done, it needs to be done right, the first time.
Let's work together and get this done.
Learn more: check out the language of our petition, check out what the NAACP Legal Defense Fund says about Columbus elections and the Voting Rights Act, and download a copy of our 9-district map along with its voter demographic statistics, a copy of the current fake district map that separates Franklinton from the Hilltop, and puts the Near East Side in a district with neighborhoods by Grove City (Fake District 7)!
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