11/06/14: Don’t break Norfolk School Board into wards

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

IN THE last few hours of Tuesday’s voting, the Norfolk City Council was sharing a meal with the city’s General Assembly delegation. The mayor, according to Pilot reporter Patrick Wilson, told the legislators that education tops the city’s legislative agenda.

I’ll bet it does.

Hours later, Norfolk voters overwhelmingly approved the election of its school board members. The move will require a change to the city’s charter, which the General Assembly must approve. While it may appear that this is a simple issue, it isn’t. The question to be resolved is whether the School Board will be elected at large, as it is currently appointed, or by wards, like the council.

Norfolk voters may not have considered this question, but those within the city have. An August memo argues that the ward system is the way to go.

Not so fast. Electing the School Board by wards would be a mistake.

I’ve lived in Norfolk under both the at-large council system and the ward system. I’ve come to prefer the former over the latter, for two reasons: race and voter disenfranchisement.

First, a little history.

Wards were implemented in Norfolk as the result of a lawsuit, Collins v. City of Norfolk, that successfully argued that black representation on the City Council was not proportional to the population. At the time, the city’s voting age population was approximately 65 percent white and 35 percent black; the City Council had one black member.

By the time the case was settled, there were two black members among the seven-member council. Initial ward elections in 1992 brought a third black member, as well as representation for the east side of the city. In 2006, Norfolk added an elected mayor to the council.

Based on the data used for the last round of redistricting, the city’s voting age population is approximately 50.5 percent white, 40.9 percent black, and 8.6 percent other minorities. The council has — so far — resisted efforts to make the wards more racially competitive; the current eight-member council has five white members and three black members.

As I argued three years ago, we cannot move forward on the issue of race as long as systems continue to make it a priority. Putting voters into wards based on race is looking backwards. Yet that is exactly the plan for the elected School Board .

The memo from Norfolk’s attorneys to the City Council hangs its hat on the Collins suit, decided under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 requires proof of discrimination and is an after-the-fact provision. I find it ironic that the memo relies on this; after all, the U.S. Department of Justice approved the at-large election of the city’s mayor long after the Collins suit.

Further, how weird is it that it was OK to have an at-large appointed School Board but not an at-large elected one? Turns out, the Code of Virginia leaves that door wide open. Section 22.1-57.3(B) provides for at-large election of school board members if they were previously appointed at-large, but allows a city council to establish election districts.

Unofficial results from Tuesday show 85 percent favored an elected school board. If Norfolk were to adopt a ward system, those voters, many of whom hope the change will result in better schools, will find themselves losing instead of winning. The issue is how many School Board members each voter gets to choose.

When electing at large, everyone gets a say on every member who serves. We would each get to vote for all seven members of the School Board. Anything less and voters are disenfranchised.

Voting at-large means every elected member has to be responsive to every voter. That has certainly not been the case since Norfolk moved to a ward system for City Council. There is no incentive for a City Council member to listen to a voter who lives outside of his/her ward because there is no reward for doing so.

The ward system encourages divisive thinking. Rather than considering what is best for the city as a whole, what is best for the ward is a priority.

I don’t believe that’s what Norfolk voters approved Tuesday. I believe voters want what is best for the entire school system and that they want a School Board that works together to bring change.

Norfolk will be putting the finishing touches on its legislative agenda soon. Let the City Council know that the ward system for the elected School Board is an unacceptable option. I certainly will.