Fixing the City Charter
What if it was much easier for us to change the Constitution than to change the laws that have to follow it?
A city charter is the basic document that defines the organization, powers, functions and essential procedures of the city government. It is comparable to the Constitution of the United States or a state’s constitution. The charter is the most important legal document of a city.
A city code is a set of local ordinances enacted and enforced by the city, in conformance with the charter as well as state and federal laws.
A city code is to a city charter what regular laws are to the Constitution.
An glaring discrepancy in the Iowa City Charter is that it’s much easier to change the Charter (“the Constitution”) than it is to change the City Code (“regular laws”).
By “changing the Charter” and “changing the City Code”, we refer to the corresponding citizen petition processes for amending both documents. The City Council itself can amend both the Charter and the City Code at will with equal ease by passing ordinances or resolutions. But when it comes to grass roots initiatives, it’s much easier to amend the Charter than it is to amend the City Code.
The root of this incongruous discrepancy lies in the fact that the Charter amendments are governed by the Iowa Code, while the City Code amendment process is prescribed by the City Charter itself. The difference is substantial: to initiate a vote to amend the Charter, citizens are required to file a petition “signed by eligible electors of the city equal in number to ten percent of the persons who voted at the last preceding regular city election, but not less than ten persons”; in contrast, a petition to amend the City Code currently “must be signed by eligible electors equal in number to at least twenty-five percent (25%) of the number of persons who voted in the last regular city election, but such signatures of eligible electors shall be no fewer than three thousand six hundred.”
10% vs. 25% or, in most cases, 3,600 signatures — which is about 40% the current voter turnout in Iowa City. You read it right, you need to collect signatures of almost half of the voting electorate in advance before the said electorate gets to “officially” weigh in on an issue.
Now, make no mistake: if the Iowa City Attorney’s office *could* make it just as hard to change the Charter, they would do it in the blink of an eye.
But, because the Charter’s amendment process is unambiguously governed by the Iowa Code, they can’t. The initiative and referendum petitions to amend the City Code are less of a cut & dry deal.
Back in 2015, when during a once-in-a-decade City Charter Review the ACLU of Iowa issued a legal brief arguing that the then-current wording of the provisions is “in direct conflict with state law in numerous ways”, the City Attorney’s response was that she does not agree with the ACLU on this matter.
In the end, due in no small part to the substantial pressure of public opinion, the Charter Review Commission did fix the outdated and outrageous “qualified electors” provision, but simultaneously raised the number of required signatures on petitions to amend the City Code even further, to the current ‘25% of registered voters but no less than 3600’.
The Commission’s intent of not conforming with the state law governing citizen petitions (Chap. 362.4) was far from subtle; the majority of Commission members advocating for keeping the status quo and/or raising the number of signatures explicitly cited their fear of making it “too easy” to get a petition on the ballot.
The public argued that a petition is not the same as a law, but simply a proposal before the City Council or the voters, and that if the petition is misguided, frivolous or plainly not worthy of citizens’ attention, it simply will not be adopted by the Council or the voters.
It was also pointed out that the cost of putting a petition on the ballot is negligible: first of all, the Council can choose to adopt it, and if not, the measure simply goes before the voters as an extra ballot item at the next regular city or general election.
It was argued that giving citizens more power to bring up issues that matter to them significantly increases electoral participation.
The public cited a University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll, conducted in March 2015, in which the majority of Iowa City residents surveyed disagreed with plans to increase the signature threshold to 3,600.
Finally, the fact that it’s already relatively “easy” to change the Charter, and the absurd discrepancy between the two processes was argued passionately by citizens, to no avail.
The Commissioners proceeded with their flawed recommendation, and the outgoing City Council unanimously approved it as presented.
The irony of this entire ordeal of course lies in the fact that making both petition processes conform to the Iowa Code is as simple as filing a citizen petition to amend the Charter to do just that — following that same “easy” petition process that the city establishment is so afraid of. All we can guess is that, contrary to the establishment’s own arguments, they are betting that no one will do that. Well, today we are proving them wrong.
The petition in question is available here. If you would like to help us collect the required 687 signatures in time to get the measure on the November 2016 ballot, shoot us an email at team@stopbigbrother.org.
October 2016 update: Thanks to our incredible volunteers, our petition to make the Iowa City Charter conform to the Iowa Code has made it to the November 2016 General Election ballot as “Public Measure C”. Check out our campaign website for more details!
