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. I have lived in a small East Texas town, (where I ran for mayor) population of fewer than 15, 000, whose form of government was a mayor-council, with council members being elected from distinct geographical precincts. I also lived in a town in Colorado roughly twice the size of Amarillo (where I sought appointment to a vacated city-council seat) that also functioned under a mayor-council form of government consisting of an elected mayor, 4 district (city council) seats and 3 at-large seats. Both the small Texas city and the Colorado city form of government recognized and embraced ethnic diversity, but also reflected a more modern form of representative and responsive government. But not so with Amarillo whose current, almost 100 year-old form of government, something right out of the stone ages, that totally denies its own changing demographics, and stubbornly resists changing the system that insures “all white” faces at the helm. For those who are repulsed by the phrase “all white,” I ask “Since its inception in 1913, how many Amarillo commissioners have been other than Anglo?”
So what’s the difference between Amarillo and Iraq? Iraq is ahead of us by miles in the arena of representative government and they’ve been at it for only 5 years. The Iraqis even had to dodge bullets to vote. Amarillo voters won’t even dodge a cow pad of two—(might get dirt on their new pick-up truck rims) to make any effort to change the fact that we have an antiquated form of city government. Except for the few, “heads stuck in the sands,” folks who want to hang on to “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” we need to take a lesson from Baghdad about representative government. If the Iraqis can survive the iron-fisted Saddam Hussein and forge a democracy, why is it that the tight-fisted, Amarillo gate-keepers of old notions of small town oligarchies, cannot do the same? Amarillo’s new demographics demand a change in how this city is being run!! But, I shouldn’t be surprised at resistance. Amarillo is part of America, a country founded on democratic, all men of equal principles—that it ignored on its own soil for 350 years. Yet, Americans are the first ones to fly around the globe denouncing “human rights” violations in “banana republics” when we have not lived out those true democratic creeds right here on American soil. Amarillo, Texas is little more than a banana republic itself–a shining example of “democracy not in action” right here on the High Plains. In any other part of the world there would already have been a coup—or two. For those who say, “Let’s just go along to get alone, let’s just keep the peace,” I say “Peace– at what price?”
What message are we sending to our increasingly, ethnically diverse children when only white (mostly male) faces can be elected to city government? Are we sending the message that only Anglo males can engage in the deliberative process, meaning intelligent and empathetic listening to all sides, honest, frank and open discussions about relevant issues, and arrival at fair and just decisions? If this is the message, then no wonder many non Anglo Amarillo school kids increasingly exhibit an “I don’t know and I don’t care” attitude. Are we sending the message that only white males can assess, define, interpret, and creatively address community needs, across racial and ethnic lines? Or is there something else at place—known as “kitchen and back door politics,” whose primary goal is to preserve for the connected few access to government benefits that the connected few have grown accustomed to? If this is what Amarillo politics is all about, then there is little wonder than 95 percent of the people in Amarillo don’t have a clue as to who the four city commissioners are, or what exactly they do. Is this what representative democracy is all about? If so, why did we hang Saddam Hussein?
Copyright 2010 - L. Arthalia Cravin. All rights Reserved. No part of this commentary may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
