The Case for Elected City Council Voting Over a Referendum
In response to Council’s recent vote to adopt an ordinance transitioning Council terms from 2-years with all Councilors elected each cycle to 4-year staggered terms, Council decided to implement this transition via ordinance rather than placing it on the ballot as a referendum. The NC General Statutes give local governments the choice in how to implement such changes. Since Council chose to act by ordinance rather than referendum, the same authorizing statute provides that citizens can force the issue onto the ballot by collecting 5,000 signatures. Regardless of the mechanism of enactment, the decision is supported by the Council-appointed 10-person Study Group’s research and unanimous recommendations released in 2021. As set forth in the Study Group’s final report, moving to 4-year staggered terms is consistent with the vast majority of “peer” cities within North Carolina and across the Country. Further, the City conducted a voter poll with scientific sampling and the mixed results demonstrated a potential knowledge deficit.
The move to staggered, four-year terms is a wise one. A recent editorial in the News & Observer may have taken issue with the Council’s decision – yet the Editorial Board was forced to admit the merits of making this transition. Longer terms will make Councilors more effective. Currently, they are in campaign mode every other year, meaning that the pressures to campaign and fundraise crowd out governing. Longer terms give Councilors the space to focus on governing. In particular, it allows them to focus more on initiatives or projects that simply can’t be completed in a 2-year election cycle. Finally, longer terms will enable new Councilors more time to get up to speed on governing a City with 500,000 people and a $1.3 Billion budget.
And yet, dismissing all of this, a News & Observer editorial argued that Raleigh would be better served by letting voters decide whether to transition to 4-year staggered terms. The Editorial also ignores the complexity of the issue. While it may be intuitively appealing to operate on a direct democracy decision-making model, there is growing evidence that American voters may not be adequately informed about local issues, which can undermine the effectiveness of direct democracy mechanisms such as referendums. Just this year, a study found that 70% of Americans lack basic knowledge about the three branches of government, the number of Supreme Court Justices and many basics of democracy. Other research on barriers specific to local elections suggests that lower turnout is frequently a result of a lack of awareness of the candidates and issues and a lack of understanding of the functions of local elected officials and their impacts. This lack of knowledge can result in voters making uninformed decisions or abstaining from voting altogether.
While referenda allow voters to have a say on specific policies, bond financing or constitutional changes, they also have their drawbacks. Because of the lack of civic education and the prevailing information deficit among voters, using referenda makes it easier to misrepresent positions to confuse and mislead voters. That is certainly possible in Raleigh, where a determined contingent of activists have consistently tried to manipulate public opinion through disinformation in order to stymie changes that would have broad benefits for the city.
On the other hand, elected city councilors are more informed about local issues due to their involvement in local governance. They have governing experience, access to resources and information that the average voter may not, thus enabling them to make more informed decisions. Not to mention the fact that they remain accountable to their constituents, providing a check and balance in the decision-making process.
While it is essential for citizens to participate in the democratic process, it is equally important to ensure that decisions are made based on informed choices. Given the knowledge gap among American voters regarding local issues, it may sometimes be more effective to have elected city council members vote on matters rather than putting them to voters through a referendum. This does not undermine the democratic process but rather strengthens it by ensuring that decisions are made based on comprehensive understanding and consideration of the issues at hand.