Operational Consensus with the Body Politic and Democracy
The local planning forum on the South Side operates under a charter of a strict CONSENSUS. Just to be clear as to what they mean by a "strict consensus," understand that any "nay" vote breaches progress in that area of discussion. The vote can be 11 to 1 and the lone voter wins. All votes for action need to be unanamous.As a result of this charter of "strict consensus" the group is super selective as to who gets to speak and even more selective as to who gets to "join" and "vote." Only the safe survive.
Those who are of a different mind-set and who might "rock the boat" do not get to participate.
One of the recent actions of the South Side Forum was the formation of official rules as to who could join and who could not. These rules were enacted in January 1999 due to some pressure some months prior that a new seat was needed for another interest group. Suprise, a new member wanted in, and gee, there were not any official rules as to who they could let in and it had to go to committee for a many-month delay.
The rules as to who can get into the South Side Forum and who can not are now official, but since the rules are not posted on the internet or in the library, it has been hard to comment on them. Perhaps a later draft of this Position Paper will show the rules of membership.
The Consensus Cloud Boggs Down the Threat of Most Actions
The act of participation is another issue worthy of evaluation, in and of itself, because of the looming consensus cloud. The body needs a consensus to act, so any issue that isn't sterile, safe and sure to win by a land-slide is not addressed. Any "hot potato" issue is not welcomed.The South Side Forum meets a lot, and votes a little. It counts the number of meetings they hold, so as to bolter its image as a cog in the wheel of community input. A score-sheet as to the number of meetings held is not a benchmark of one's success.
Not only are "hot" issues avoided, most of the time all issues are avoided. The South Side Forum has members from other organizations, so it can deflect most direct contact with the outside world to a member organization, as a "more appropriate move." For example, when the people of Hazelwood who are fighting against the proposed SUN Coke Plant wanted to speak to the South Side Forum, they were instead given an audience with the South Side Community Council. Having a fire-wall to the community seems to be make the organization more important, like the Supreme Court is to the Judicial branch of government.
City Council can not rely upon a group of this nature for serious planning issues and critical advice. The South Side Planning Forum should be a voice, but not a voice that is heard above any other and to the exclusion of others.
Questions and Answers about the South Side Planning Forum:
- How are members appointed?
Advisory bodies typically are appointed by the mayor, council or both in most states. - How do they approve things, i.e., do they vote under rules of parlimentary procedure?
- Are they subject to Open Meeting or Sunshine Laws?
Exposing a ruling clique who pretend to operate out of "consensus"
By definition, one can have a "Consensus" on an issue and NOT "unanimity." In everyday talk, a "strict consensus" is not the same as a "general consensus." The South Side Planning Forum's charter calls for a "strict consens" and this means a vote with a unanamous result. Generally, unanimity is often the goal of consensus, and sometimes a consensus is actually achieved.In the real world, the whole idea behind a consensus is the commitment to hear every objection, and to bring people with differences together through mutual persuasion. Any process which dismisses "nay-saying" is not consensual. It doesn't matter whether the nay is dismissed by overriding it (majority rules), ignoring it, or "preventing" it through careful selection of the discussants.
The Courtroom Consensus Example
Lawyers try to get their point of view represented on the jury before the case is presented, but the opposition also gets a shot at this. One of the best portrayals of arriving at consensus is Sidney Lumet's film, "Twelve Angry Men." To "expose" the planning forum, let's re-visit that film's message and lead a post-screening discussion with clear reference to how things are done in this town.Sanford Smith
Face it, the South Side Planning Forum is city government's private way of getting around public accountability. City Council needs to see this portrayal of the methods and the facts of the matters.
The South Side Planning Forum is full of U.R.A. cronies and volunteer buddies squeemish for area development and climbing the power ladder. This group does work that city council is supposed to do.
The Accountability Trail is a Long and Winding Road
Ask the Pitt Football Coach about this project and he'll say, talk to the Athletic Director.Ask the Athletic Director at the Univ. of Pittsburgh about this project, and he'll say that one should talk to UPMC.
Ask UPMC about this project, and they say they have little to meet with me about as things are not final yet. Because things were not final, all the more reason to talk, so I said in December 1998. "Let's talk before things are final so we can build together rather than ditch what you wanted to build from the outset." It was clear what UPMC was going to do and not do from day one. The UPMC folks then get to the point and say, go talk to the URA.
The URA folks say, go talk to the Local Planning Forum. For what it is worth, I do think that I did get my invite to the discussion table with a Steering Committee because of my badgering of the people at the URA.
The South Side Planning Forum says, "Take up your issues with one of the Forum's members that would represent your concerns." Yea, Right.
The South Side Planning Forum says, "Take up your issues with the LTV Steering Committee." Well, the Steering Committee meetings are closed affairs and they meet only when they want to meet. Most meetings are to listen to new plans brought forth by the URA.
Three Tests of Political Fairness by Lani Guinier †††††† ††††††††Ä Does the system mobilize or discourage †††††††† participation? ††††††††Ä Does the system encourage genuine debate or †††††††† foster polarization? ††††††††Ä Does the system promise real inclusion or only †††††††† token representation? In most debates about democracy in action, issues such as Race-conscious districting often surface. While race-conscious districting does not do well on any of the three tests above. Fascism, such as displayed with the system of leadership deployed by the South Side Planning Forum, does worse. No election structure alone can be perfect for all. However, we need to consider alternatives to single-member districts -- in particular, to consider systems of modified at-large representation, which promise politically cohesive minorities both potential electoral success and reasonable influence throughout the extended political process.†††††††† ††††††††There are many such alternative systems, but here I will focus on a scheme used in corporate governance called "cumulative voting." Under cumulative voting, voters cast multiple votes up to the number fixed by the number of open seats. If there are five seats on city council, then each voter gets to cast five votes. But they may choose to express the intensity of their preferences by concentrating all of their votes on a single candidate. ††††††††Let's return now to the three tests sketched earlier, and consider how cumulative voting fares in mobilizing participation, encouraging debate and fostering inclusion. Cumulative Voting and Participation ††††††††If voting is polarized along racial lines, as voting rights litigation cases hypothesize, then a system of cumulative voting would likely operate to provide at least a minimal level of minority representation. Unlike race-conscious districting, however, cumulative voting allows minority group members to identify their own allegiances and their preferences based on their strategic use of multiple voting possibilities. ††††††††Instead of having the government authoritatively assign people to groups and districts, cumulative voting allows voluntary interest constituencies to form and regroup at each election; voters in effect "redistrict" themselves at every election. By abandoning geographic districting, it also permits a fair representation of minority voters who do not enjoy the numerical strength to become a district electoral majority or who -- as is true of Latinos living in dispersed barrios -- are so geographically separated that their strength cannot be maximized within one or more single-member districts. ††††††††In these ways, cumulative voting would likely encourage greater electoral participation. Cumulative Voting and Political Debate ††††††††Cumulative voting also looks good as a way to encourage genuine debate rather than foster polari-zation. Cumulative voting lowers the barriers to entry for local third parties since supporters of such parties can concentrate all their votes on the candidates from their party. With barriers reduced, minority political partes might reclaim, at a newly invigorated grassroots level, the traditional party role of mobilizing voter participation, expanding the space of organized alterna-tives and so stretching the limits of political debate. ††††††††Additionally, locally-based political parties might then organize around issues or issue-based coalitions. Since the potential support for the minority political party is not confined by a geographic or necessarily racial base, cross-racial coalitions are possible Cumulative Voting and Inclusion ††††††††Cumulative voting is more inclusive than winner-take-all, race-conscious districting. Cumulative voting begins with the proposition that a consensus model of power sharing is preferable to a majoritarian model of centralized, winner-take-all accountability and popular sovereignty. ††††††††Cumulative voting takes the idea of democracy by consensus and compromise and structures it in a deliberative, collective decision-making body in which the prejudiced white majority is "disaggregated." The majority is disaggregated both because the threshold for participation and representation is lowered to something less than 51 percent and because minorities are not simply shunted in "their own districts." These changes would encourage and reward efforts to build cross-racial electoral alliances. A Vision for the Future ††††††††The principle of proportionality, or "political fairness," is molded by the hope that a more cooperative political style of deliberation and ultimately a more equal basis for preference satisfaction is possible when community-based minority representatives are reinforced by structures to empower them at every stage of the political process. Ultimately, however, representation and participation based on principles of political fairness are also an attempt to reconceptualize the ideal of political equality, and so the ideal of democracy itself. ††††††††The aim of that reconstruction should be to re-orient our political imagination away from the chimera of achieving a physically integrated legislature in a color-blind society and toward a clearer vision of a fair and just society. In the debate over competing claims to democratic legitimacy based on the value of minority group representation, I side with the advocates of an integrated, diverse legislature. A homogeneous legislature in a heterogeneous society is simply not legitimate. ††††††††But while black legislative visibility is an important measure of electoral fairness, taken by itself it represents an anemic approach to political fairness and justice. A vision of fairness and justice must begin to imagine a full and effective voice for disadvantaged minorities, a voice that is accountable to self-identified community interest, a voice that persuades and a voice that is included in and resonates throughout the political process. That voice will not be achieved by majoritarian means or by enforced separation into winner-take-all racial districts. ††††††††For in the end democracy is not about rule by the powerful -- even a powerful majority -- nor is it about arbitrarily separating groups to create separate majorities in order to increase their share. Instead, the ideal of democracy promises a fair discussion among self-defined equals about how to achieve our common aspirations. To redeem that promise, we need to put the idea of proportionality -- meaning political fairness and the notion of taking turns -- at the center of our conception of representation. ††††††††Lani Guinier is a professor law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a former attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. This article is adapted from an essay that originally appeared in The Boston Review. For more on Professor Guinier's ideas, see her book The Tyranny of the Majority (Martin Kessler of the Free Press). ††††††††"With cumulative voting, any substantial minority, by casting all its votes for a single candidate, might win a representative. But a smaller ethnic, religious, political or geographic minority would have an incentive to find allies and build coalitions. . . . . Cumulative voting may not be a panacea for the knotty problem of giving minorities -- any minorities -- representation. But it's worth exploring." Ä Don Noel (Hartford Courant political columnist), Hartford Courant, June 30, 1993 ††††††††"Disagreements over the Voting Rights Act are more than arguments over principle. They are also intensely political. Republicans are coming to believe the act enhances their prospects by safely concentrating minority voters in a few districts, thereby minimizing their influence elsewhere. Meanwhile, Democrats are discovering that well-regarded white liberals are redistricted out of office to make way for minority politicians. ††††††††"There is, however, a new approach that could defuse much of this conflict. The Voting Rights Act might be amended to encourage use of a practice known as cumulative voting. This practice would achieve the goals of the act just as effectively, while addressing the concerns of its detractors." Ä Richard Pildes (University of Michigan Law School professor), New Republic: "Gimme Five: Non- Gerrymandering Racial Justice," March 1, 1993. Table of Contents † ____________________________________________________ Copyright © 1998 The Center for Voting and Democracy. All rights reserved. PO Box 60037, Washington D.C., 20039.† Contact information.
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