ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The St. Petersburg Charter Review Commission will be submitting its proposed amendments to the city’s charter and that accompanying ballot language by the end of July.
What You Need To Know
- The Commission meets once a decade
- Advocates say that changing to district-wide city council elections would enhance direct democracy
- The change would permit St. Pete voters for only vote on one representative in the general election
The nine-member group, one appointed by the mayor and the others each appointed by one of the city’s eight-member city council, gathers once a decade to decide on what proposals should go before the voters to change the city’s Charter, which is considered the city’s constitution. Among the items that the board has been discussing in recent months are an independent citizens commission to draw up council districts, expanding (or decreasing) the size of the eight-member city council and holding true district elections for city council members.
Regarding district elections, there’s currently a hybrid system in play: council candidates are elected in the primary election purely from voters in their respective districts. However, once they make it to the November ballot, the elections are held citywide.
That’s different than in other local jurisdictions. The Tampa city council and Hillsborough and Pinellas County commissions are among some of the local governments in the Tampa Bay area that specify a certain number of seats be elected only by voters who live in a particular district, with an additional number of (at-large) seats voted by the entire city or county.
That’s not the case in St. Petersburg and some voting rights advocates say it needs to change.
“The current system that the city has had for decades is really one of a kind,” says Nicholas Warren with the ACLU of Florida. “There’s definitely a tension in having folks run in the districts, in their neighborhoods in the primary and then face all voters citywide regardless of what districts they live in in the general election.”
There’s also an equity issue at play.
Stephanie Owens with the Pinellas Chapter of the ACLU says in the past 15 years, Black candidates for the St. Pete City Council have lost every single runoff election against a white opponent when those contests went citywide.
“The challenge for predominantly minority areas — and in the case of St. Petersburg, predominantly African-Americans areas — those citizens lose the opportunity to leverage their voice for that representation,” says Owens.
David Beattie, a former political campaign strategist and pollster, gave a PowerPoint presentation to the Commission last month. He said that single member districts can increase diversity only when underrepresented groups are highly concentrated and compose a substantial portion of the population.
Advocates also say that candidates running in a single district vs. the entire city would not have to raise as much campaign cash.
“If you go to single-member district elections, you can have more folks who don’t have to raise a ton of money, who can run with just a grassroots campaign,” says Warren.
Traditionally, four of the eight seats on the city council go before the voters every two years in St. Petersburg. This year a fifth seat will be on the ballot, with District 1 Councilmember Robert Blackmon leaving it open after his resignation takes effect in January because of his decision to run for mayor. That means St. Pete residents in November will get to decide on five different council seats, in addition to mayor and other charter amendments in November.
While limitations to voting in just one city council race vs. a plethora of seats might disappoint some voters, a random selection of a few voters that Spectrum Bay News 9 spoke with last week at a campaign event for mayoral candidate Pete Boland elicited only positive reactions.
“I believe that’s a great idea because it helps make sure the citizens that are most affected in that district are able to choose their representation,” said St. Pete native Jerell Vincent. “It helps decentralize the power away from big political machines - super PACS if you will, that can throw money towards a certain candidate.”
“I would be in favor of making the issues more local,” said Abel Carrasco.” The more local something can be, usually the better. But I’d love to see data on how things shake out and what that means on the macro perspective, but for the most part, everything at the local level is usually better.”
“I think that it’s best if we stay in the district,” says Jarib Figueredo, a candidate in the District 4 city council race in August. “I’m out there campaigning and gathering data listening to the voters and asking, ‘What do they want for the district?’”
St. Petersburg voters are likely to have the issue of single-district races on the ballot in November for them to decide. If it were to be approved, it would go into effect during the 2023 election cycle.