George,

The following is from Channel 29's report this evening on the elected school board petition (quoted from the web site, but the story also ran on the air):

"'It sounds like a democratic idea - a more democratic way of doing things - but majority rules in a democracy and minorities often lose out,' says Councilor Kendra Hamilton. Hamilton points out there are no African American school board members in Albemarle County, where the board is elected."

With all due respect, how can Ms. Hamilton claim that minorities in Charlottesville would not fair well in school board elections when African-American candidates were the top vote-getters in the 1996, 2000, and 2004 city council elections? (The successful 1996 and 2000 candidate was former Mayor Maurice Cox, and the successful 2004 candidate was Ms. Hamilton.) Is Ms. Hamilton saying that notwithstanding these results, Charlottesville voters are unlikely to vote for qualified minority candidates? Isn't the opposite true -- that the progressives who dominate the voting in the city are eager to vote for qualified minority candidates because they are committed to diversity?

Besides misreading the proclivities of city voters, Ms. Hamilton's comment underestimates the skills of politically-oriented minority candidates. Does Ms. Hamilton believe that Mr. Cox and herself are the only African-Americans in Charlottesville who are capable of running a successful local political campaign? Mr. Cox and Ms. Hamilton are extraordinary candidates and politicians, but certainly there are other African-Americans who could (and would) mount strong campaigns and win the support of city voters.

The comparison that Ms. Hamilton makes with Albemarle County is misleading because the county is 85.2 percent white and only 9.7 percent African-American, according to the 2000 census. By contrast, the city's population is 69.6 percent white and 22.2 percent African-American. Given these figures and the fact that the city leans much farther to the left than the county, there is every reason to expect that African-American candidates would put themselves up for election and that qualified ones would stand an excellent chance of winning.

Finally, it should be noted that school board elections in Charlottesville would be organized by ward and that research demonstrates that ward-based elections across the U.S. favor minority candidates. (Given this fact, I find myself wondering why diversity-concerned opponents of an elected school board also tend to oppose ward-based city council elections. After all, a ward-elected city council would almost certainly be more diverse than one, like ours, that is elected on a citywide basis.)

As I said in another recent posting to loper.org, there are good arguments for and against an elected board, but we have to watch out for red herrings. The red herring I addressed in the previous posting was the belief that ward-based school board elections would force ward-based city council elections. The diversity argument raised by Ms. Hamilton is also a red herring.

To sum up: an elected school board in Charlottesville is likely to be diverse because most city voters are committed to diversity, the city has no shortage of qualified minority candidates, and elections organized by ward traditionally favor minority candidates.

I sincerely hope that our Democratic City Councillors will look at this issue with fresh eyes, research it carefully, draw valid and meaningful comparisons with other localities, examine past city election results, and in the final analysis err on the side of trusting the voters who voted them into office.

Jeffrey Rossman (electronic mail, June 16, 2005)