TO: MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBERSFROM: DEAN RINDYRE: MAY CITY ELECTIONS ARE BETTER FOR THE CITY

Dear Mayor and Council Members:I have worked in elections in this city for 30 years, as well as serving as a political consultant in municipal,state and federal elections in 25 states. These thoughts are based on that experience. As a Democratic political consultant, I might personally benefit from holding the 2012 city election in November, but to behonest I think that date would be bad for Austin.Democracy in Austin will be far better served by holding our city elections at the regularly scheduled time inMay. Any additional expense will be well worth it. A November city election in a Presidential year would bea travesty. Rather than helping democracy, it would subvert it---for several reasons.A quick summary of objections:---

Many voters will regard it as undemocratic and wrong for incumbent office holders to arbitrarilyextend their term of office without voter approval, and this could become an issue against any CouncilMember who votes to do so.

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City issues and candidates would be totally drowned out by national and state campaigns

in thesummer and fall of 2012

. There would be almost no news coverage of city candidates. Advertising would be far more expensive. City candidates’ messages would be lost in the blizzard of mail and tv ads from better financed state and federal campaigns. Citizen forums, quite important in city elections, would beoverwhelmed.---

A November 2012 election would be more of an insider’s game,

not less

It would hand more powerto a small group of political insiders--- the special interest lobbyists who fund campaigns, and thepolitical operatives who influence local Democratic and Republican political endorsements.

This isinevitable because the election will become vastly more expensive and vastly more partisan.---

A November 2012 city election would mean less democracy, not more so, in spite of drawing far morevoters. The number of voters would be higher; but their chance to be well informed, to hearmeaningful public discussion, to consider alternatives, and to participate in a debate about city issues

would be much, much less.

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A November 2012 date would automatically make city campaigns far more expensive, while making itvery difficult to recruit and organize grass roots volunteer efforts.

City candidates would have tocompete for attention with scores of other campaigns at every level, trying to reach a vastly larger Presidentialyear electorate, while paying for more expensive TV time and sending mailers to thousands of extra voters.Field, mail and TV would all become far more expensive, and potential volunteers would be siphoned off bystate and federal races.---

A November election would give incumbents an unfair advantage , even bigger than the one theyhave now

since it would become vastly more expensive and far more difficult for challengers tobecome known.

A little more explanation:1. Many voters will think it is wrong to use a mere change in state election schedules as an excuse toarbitrarily extend incumbents terms of office by half a year---in violation of historic practice and the CityCharter whose spirit you are sworn to uphold. This can be seen as a subversion of voters’ rights and the ruleof law. In America voters are the only persons entitled to make decisions on how long an incumbent remainsin office. It would be surprising if challengers did not make it an issue against any incumbent who voted toextend their own term.Even Rudy Guiliani, at the height of his popularity as Mayor of New York in the months after 9/11, failedwhen he tried to get an agreement to extend his term an extra three months “in order to ease transition in atime of crisis.” He failed in the face of wide spread public criticism that called his move an “extra legalmaneuver.”2. Staging our city election simultaneously with the national election will wipe out any chance for real debateand discussion of city issues. There is a physical limit to how much attention voters and news media can giveto politics at one time. By next fall news media and commercial airwaves will be totally dominated by stateand national campaigns. Austin airwaves will be saturated with political advertising costing millions of dollars. It will be almost impossible for city candidates to compete for news space or to be noticed amidst the blizzard of competing ads and direct mail at the state and federal level. Think about how hard it is to get newsmedia attention or to pay for TV time for Council races held in May. In November it will be ten times worseand three times more expensive. City candidates will be competing with Presidential, statewide and county politics---all in a highly partisan atmosphere. Challengers will face an almost impossible task againstincumbents.3. The argument has been made that November will be more “democratic” because more people will bevoting. It would be truer to say that more uninformed people will vote, though this would not be the voters’fault. It would be the fault of combining too many elections with too many candidates at too many levels at thesame time. People are not computers with infinite capacity on their hard drives. They can only take so muchinput. As a practical matter, it will be impossible for voters who follow the Presidential or state campaigns to become adequately informed about city issues during the national election season. For all the reasons previously mentioned, voters simply will not have sufficient opportunity or time to inform themselves.Further, in partisan elections most voters use the simple shortcut given by party identification and they chooseDemocrat, Republican, Libertarian or Green. But city elections are non-partisan, which makes it far moreimportant to learn about the views and backgrounds of individual candidates. Real democracy depends oninformed citizens who have a chance to educate themselves. In the confused frenzy of November, most