By Vivian Medithi
In the drama of this year’s presidential election, it has been easy to overlook local races, which have a greater effect on most people’s day-to-day lives. Local ballots are where we choose who represents our state to the nation, who gets to handle our tax dollars, and a host of local issues from infrastructure to education. This year in Iowa City, we get to make a decision on Public Measure C, a ballot initiative that seeks to reduce the number of signatures needed to put an initiative or referendum before the City Council.
People can petition the City Council to put a proposal, such as an initiative or referendum, up for direct voting. Initiatives introduce new legislation, while referendums are votes on proposals already passed by legislature. The council may then adopt the proposal, or one very similar to it, or repeal it. If the council does none of these, the proposal then goes to the ballot; initiatives go to the next city or general-election ballot, while referendums allow for the possibility of a special election being called.
In order for a petition to make its way to the City Council, it needs a certain number of signatures from eligible electors to be considered. That number stands at 25 percent of the prior city election, with a minimum number of 3,600 signatures. Last year’s city election had 6,865 voters, setting the threshold for proposals now at 3,600, because 25 percent of 6,865 is 1,716.
The inclusion of the 3,600-signature threshold was a tradeoff instituted in response to a loosening of eligibility requirements for elector signatures. Previously, eligibility was interpreted as being registered to vote at your current address. If you think about that sentence for a moment, it quickly becomes clear who the city would mark as ineligible: students who live in dorms and apartments year to year or even semester to semester.
Essentially, this forced petitioners to also be voter registrars, an unfair burden in a state that allows for same-day voter registration. It also meant that petitions that started in the spring with strong student support would have to reregister previous signees if they change addresses.
The loosening of eligibility is a good thing, but the institution of a 3,600-signature threshold is unnecessarily onerous; 3,600 is 52.4 percent of the last city election turnout, more than double the proposed fraction in the charter as is. Furthermore, at the state level, Iowa Code dictates petitions should be valid if signed by 10 percent of eligible electors, with a minimum of 10 people. The minimum number is low because the expectation is that voter turnout will outstrip the minimum, leaving the percentage number as the de facto number of signatures necessary. Given the low turnout of local elections across the years (Iowa City’s record is 15,728 voters in 2007, 25 percent of which is 3,932), we can see the threshold of 3,600 as prohibitively high.
The institution of the 3,600-threshold also suggests that the model prior to 2015 was working fine. Can any form of democracy be seen as “working fine” when it consistently disenfranchises a huge portion of eligible voters who live in Iowa City at least two-thirds of the year, if not more? The 3,600-threshold should never have been introduced because no policy regarding direct-democracy should disenfranchise perfectly eligible voters on technicalities, ultimately rooted in citizens’ status as students.
Public Measure C will bring Iowa City’s Charter in line with Iowa Code, with petitions requiring 10 percent of the prior local election turnout in order to be considered by the council. Some might say that this creates unnecessary work for the City Council and that it will be inundated with policy proposals. To those people, I say good. When it comes to running a city, the voice of the people should matter and should not be stifled at the preliminary stages. Policy proposals still have to be decided upon by the council, which may then, in turn, relegate the decision to the general electorate. To suggest that the council is too busy to hear the complaints of people who can’t make the 3,600 signature requirement is simply petty, dismissing the concerns of the voter blocs with the least members out of convenience.
Democracy is supposed to be a government for the people, by the people, and of the people. If you think everyone’s voice matters in democracy, no matter how loud, no matter how much money, no matter whose voice, then vote Yes on Public Measure C.