Last year the Tennessee General Assembly outlawed the city council voting system in the city of Knoxville. Instead of allowing voters city-wide to vote for all district candidates in the general election, it would become restricted to district voters only in six of the nine seats.
“And that's important, because when you run in a district only, then you basically represent that district and … your attention is going to be much more on the smaller district rather than the city,” said Bill Lyons, a retired political science professor at the University of Tennessee. “Though most council people have a mix of both in their perspective.”
Lyons says that when the assembly outlawed Knoxville’s voting system, the city council had to make a decision.
“People on council, led by Andrew Roberto, proposed and approved a change to put on the ballot, to change our charter,” Lyons said. “To change the six district representatives to run citywide with the only requirement that they live in their district.”
And so, Knoxville voters will be faced with a question on their ballots this Nov. 5: are you for, or are you against Amendment Two?
“It sounds complex, but it's really fairly simple,” Lyons said. “What it's about is, are we going to have council people who are all nine of them responsible to, accountable to seeking votes of people all over the city? Or are we going to have six of them restricted to represent certain districts? That's what the issue is.”
City Councilman Andrew Roberto, who represents Knoxville’s 2nd district, says the amendment is an attempt by the council to restore the votes of Knoxville citizens.
“The state law changed the way our elections run,” Roberto said. “Now you only can vote for four members of council, which would be your district rep and the three at-large. And Amendment Two restores your vote for all nine members, just like we've been doing for the last 55 years.”
It still wouldn’t be exactly the same. Yes, all city voters would have a say in the general election just like they have been, but they’d also be able to vote in the primaries.
Councilwoman At-Large Amelia Parker was the lone dissenting vote against the proposed amendment. She says that under an all at-large system, it’s possible that a candidate might win simply based on name recognition.
“For our city council elections, especially for those who are supposed to represent a district, voters need more time to learn about the candidates, and so a system like that gives preference to incumbents who already have that name recognition,” Parker said.
She’s also concerned with minority representation.
“When I first received the proposal to move to an all at large city council, even with the residency requirements for six of the seats, I made a counter proposal for a district only election system, because of my understanding of the impact that at large elections have on minority voters in a city,” Parker said.
She says that switching to an all at-large system might dilute the power of voters belonging to a racial minority in the city, who currently only hold an electoral majority in District 6.
Roberto feels that by giving all city voters a chance to choose all 9 council members, it makes representation more diverse.
"Remember, anything that happens on city council, you have to have five votes in order to make anything happen,” Roberto said. “If you reduce yourself as a voter down to four votes, then you're not going to have as much input.”
Regardless of the outcome, both Lyons and Roberto agreed that this is a unique opportunity for the Knoxville voter to have a say in how their government is structured.
“We wanted to provide an opportunity for the citizens of Knoxville to say that they wanted to continue to vote for all nine council members,” Roberto said. “Or, if they would rather just vote for four, then they can vote no.”
