The election bombshell

Larry Casto, one of Dallas’ assistant city attorneys, just completed what could have been a mundane presentation to the Dallas City Council on what’s going on with the Lege down in Austin. The reason it wasn’t mundane was because of the “oh, by the way” bombshell he dropped at the end of his presentation. He told the council that the Lege will pass and the governor likely will sign a bill creating a uniform election date throughout the state.

That means is all elections — whether they be school board, municipal, bond elections, congressional, presidential — will be held on the same date and that date probably will be the second Tuesday in November. Therefore, those elected to the City Council this May will not have to stand for re-election until November 2013 (in case of the mayor, November 2015).

This has far reaching effects. For one, like Casto told the council, instead of leading off the ballot like they will in May, city council candidates will probably be relegated to Page 14, 15 or later on the November ballot. But, although this subject wasn’t broached at the council session, I’m guessing this will also eliminate runoffs — that all a council candidate will need is a plurality, not a majority, of the votes. This will definitely favor incumbents, especially if they have more than one opponent in an election because all the opposition voters won’t have the opportunity to unite behind one candidate in a runoff. It also favors minorities in the mayor’s race, especially if the minority community can unite behind and come to the polls to vote for one candidate, which is far more likely to happen in a November election setting.

Unless, of course, the City Council takes the bold step (But when have you ever heard of our council taking a bold step?) of removing the bi-partisan status of the City Council elections. Force the candidates to affiliate with a political party. That way the candidates can run in their respective party’s primary prior to the general election, and the also-rans can be eliminated through that process.

As a semi-closeted anarchist, I love it when something comes along to disrupt the status quo and this is definitely one of those times. Those who are familiar with what really happened in the “location debate” will know if a uniform election date had been created a decade ago, the new Cowboys Stadium probably would have been constructed in Dallas.