Iraq and Amarillo—What’s the difference when it comes to representative government?
by L. Arthalia Cravin
If you have been watching the news lately, you know that the tyrannical form of government under the former, now deceased president Saddam Hussein, no longer exists. Yesterday, March 7, Iraqi voters in Baghdad began the process of casting their votes in the country’s parliamentary elections. Iraq is the home of approximately 28 million people. Those qualified to vote cast their ballots among 6200 people running for 325 parliamentary seats covering the eighteen Iraqi provinces. This year’s vote is the country’s second full-term legislature since America invaded the country in 2003. The first national election was held in 2005. We are familiar with the recent suicide bombings and raining mortal shells designed to stop the democratic process. But Iraqis are determined to forged ahead to move the country toward what they understand democracy to mean—namely the right of the people to vote directly for their representatives. Part of the electoral process includes a “quota” guaranteeing women at least 25 percent of the parliamentary seats. Uh, wasn’t it George Bush who exploited the term “quota” as a bad thing during his last campaign for re-election? But to the point of this column.
So far Iraqi voters have it better than Amarillo voters. Why? Because the city of Amarillo is governed by a commissioner form of government that most cities have abandoned because of real concerns that it violates the Voting Rights Act. By way of Texas civics awareness, Texas has 254 counties and some 4700 local governments. These cities and towns range in size from large cities such as Houston and Dallas, with populations exceeding 1 million, to small towns of fewer than 1000 people. How these cities and towns handle the wide range of issues affecting them depends on how the town is classified vis-a-vis the Texas Constitution as either “home rule,” or “general law” cities.
Amarillo is Texas’ 15th largest city with a population of 173,627. Based on the 2000 and 2006 census demographics, Amarillo is 63.6 percent white, 26.9 percent Latino, 6.5 percent black, and 1.9 percent Asian. In 1990 Amarillo’s population was 157,615; 82.7 percent white, 14.7 Latino, 6.0 percent black, and Asian 1.9 percent. In 1913, Amarillo became the first Texas city and the fifth in the United States to use the so-called Galveston Plan, a city commission form of government that originated in Galveston after the devastating hurricane of 1900. This type of city government combines the legislative and administrative functions into the offices of five city commissioners. Amarillo’s commission is composed of five elected commissioners, one of whom is the mayor of the city. The mayor and each commissioner serve a two-year term. Amarillo’s current form of city management harkens back to its so-called homogeneous origins in 1870 when it was known as “Ragtown” for the rag-tag bunch of workers who set up camp along side the then Ft. Worth and Denver City railroad tracks. Back then the town was 99.7 percent white. When the commission form of government was adopted in 1913, Amarillo’s population was around 15,000, and approximately 97 percent white. In 1930, Amarillo’s population soared to 43,000 with a black population up from 300 to 1600. I do not have the precise data on the Latino population in the 1930s, however, my black neighbor, who came to Amarillo in 1924, remembers a sizeable Latino population in the 1920s.
Fast forward to 2010 and even the late Ray Charles can see problems with a continuing form of Amarillo city government that does not recognize the voices and community needs of its divergent population, nor provide any incentive for direct participatory government. Read more »
In a letter addressed to parents and community members, a South Los Angeles elementary school principal apologized Thursday for “questionable decisions” about which prominent African Americans to highlight in a parade marking the culmination of Black History Month.