In Inweekly’s Oct. 10 edition, I focused my Outtakes on why I believe that single-member districts give voters more power, not less, as some want us to believe. Yesterday, County Commissioner Jeff Bergosh discussed a hybrid system that would allow the board to maintain minority representation.
- The U.S. Supreme Court abolished the county’s single-member districts in 1984 (Escambia County v. McMillan) when it upheld a lower court ruling that the at-large system diluted the voting strength of the Black community, violating the Voting Rights Act.
C. E. Wynn Teasley III, a professor emeritus of politics and management at the University of West Florida, gave me more background on how Escambia County and the City of Pensacola changed from at-large to single-member districts.
- “I read with interest your article where some may want to change from single-member county commission elections to at-large,” Teasley wrote. “I was hired at UWF in 1977 during the middle of the cases involving Pensacola and Escambia County–commission and school board–originally decided by Winston Arnow. There are some historical elements of which you may be well aware, but in case this arises again, these events may deserve greater emphasis.”
He explained that the pivot point of enforcing the 1965 Voting Rights Act revolved around “intent” vs. “effect.” Escambia County’s at-large election system, like the one in Santa Rosa County, was established in the Florida Constitution, which was adopted long before Blacks were allowed to vote, so there could be no intent.
However, one or more Pensacola City Council members had remarked that they did not want a “salt and pepper” city council, creating “the proverbial ‘smoking gun’ of intent. Therefore, the City didn’t fight converting to single-member districts. [But the city did keep two at-large positions, which weren’t abolished until June 2013)
But since no such “smoking gun” existed regarding the county commission, Escambia County decided to fight Judge Winston Arnow’s single-member district edict in court. JuCourtrnow had determined that the county at-large electoral system had the “effect” of vote discrimination. Hence, the case of Escambia v. McMillan, which was decided in 1984.
- “Between the local Arnow decision and the McMillan case, there was another case–Mobile v. Bolden (1982)–which established the “effect” element into vote dilution decisions,” Teasley wrote. “In other words, by the time the Escambia case reached the Supreme Court, that Court had already set the precedent that governed our local case. The Court had repeatedly recognized that the U.S. Constitution did not guarantee minority representation but did not prohibit vote discrimination since the 15th Amendment and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.”
The professor added, “Now, there have been concerted efforts to reverse the impact of those decisions since certain groups are seeming to lose their control of the election systems. Enough for now.”