The Sky Has Already Fallen, Mr. Balmer
Hey, Mr. Balmer, your doomsday scenario has been in place for the last 40 years.
Note: This is part 2 of our trilogy debunking the mix of misinformation, whitewashed history and poor logic put forward by the pro-establishment crowd over at Iowa City Beacon in relation to Public Measure C.
Here’s another statement former Iowa City Council member and mayor John Balmer makes in his now infamous Iowa City Beacon post:
We should not be lowering the requirements for the initiative and referendum measures. Doing so will likely have significant ramifications for our city. A very small segment of the population could use this avenue to propose legislation that would have little to no chance of being passed by the council. Unfortunately, with the historically low participation percentages in our local elections, this would likely increase the possibility of these dubious measures being passed and enacted.
When deconstructed, Mr. Balmer’s argument goes like this: historically, the average voter turn out in Iowa City has remained stagnant (true), and those who do turn out to vote cannot be trusted to represent the best interests of the city and our community as a whole, thus letting them vote on any ballot measure directly is dangerous and “will likely have significant ramifications for our city.”
Uhmm, okay. What about the fact that the same people who presumably can’t be trusted to vote on issues placed on the ballot also happen to elect our City Council, who then collectively decide on thousands if not tens of thousands of issues, big and small, during the course of their term?
As history shows, chances that a traditional representative body will be more diverse than the voters that elected it are slim to none, so it’s interesting that Mr. Balmer is rather unambiguously implying that the City Council is more likely to represent the best interests of the city and our community as a whole than the citizens themselves.
We can only guess that our former mayor is not per se concerned with the fact that a minority of people might be making decisions that will affect everyone, but rather that it won’t be his minority.
The unabashed elitism aside, perhaps the most important aspect of this issue that Mr. Balmer fails to mention in his somewhat unenlightened writeup is that the signature requirements proposed by Public Measure C are not new to Iowa City.
The petition process for amending the City Charter itself (as opposed to amending the City Code) already follows Section 362.4 of the Iowa Code (10% of the number of people who voted in the last city election), and has been the same for more than 40 years.
In fact, many of the most-cited areas for possible change in our city government such as council election districts, powers of the mayor, powers of the city manager, etc., are all governed by the Charter and not the City Code, and can be amended right now using the same “easy” petition process that Mr. Balmer is so afraid of.
In Mr. Balmer’s terms, the sky has fallen some 40 years ago, he just failed to notice it.
The “doomsday” is already here, and here’s what it looks like: during these past 40 years, there have been exactly two petitions to amend the City Charter, one establishing the Citizen Police Review Board (2007, passed with 72% voting ‘yes’) and another one asking for a change to the election procedure of district council members (1985, failed with 59% voting ‘no’).
If you ask us, our community could benefit from more dialog on issues like these. Obviously, Mr. Balmer disagrees. We get it, no one likes to lose control.
Looking for more info? Check out fix-the-charter.org, Fixing the City Charter, When is 5.33% a round number? and Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt
