Is My Precinct Representative?

So now Prop 1 & 2 have gone down in stinging defeats giving developers and their related industries cause for celebration along with the Austin City Council and Austin Police Department a big sigh of relief. So what caused the defeat of these proposals? Was it the deceptive advertising campaigns and interviews by the propositions opponents? (They were using quotes from the ballot language that had already been found deceptive in state court; 36 million anyone?) Was it a pattern in the media that too easily and too quickly gave a bully pulpit to current and former council members and mayors? (I watched what I would consider a "hit piece" on KVUE the night before the election that left my head shaking in awe at the extremely low quality of reporting that passes for journalism nowadays. I could easily present a case-study of all the current problems of the media with just that one news segment...) In fact, just now (5:06pm, Sun), I witnessed a report on News8 stating that Prop 1 would put all the city's documents online in real time... Geez, a day after the elections and it still isn't being represented correctly.

So there are signs that certainly point to these things being part of the reason why the propositions failed, but the most troubling sign to me would be the voting totals in my own precinct. I live in Precinct 342 (precinct totals are available here) which is the precinct directly to the east of Barton Springs. If any precinct had reason to vote for the amendments, it would be my precinct with its assorted hippies, yuppies, yippies and puppies. But, based on the vote totals, my precinct went 61% against the amendments (averaged). So almost 2 of 3 of my neighbors were either comfortable with seeing Barton Springs get paved over with more office and apartment complexes, restaurants and mini-malls or they were misled by the three-pronged approach of developer supported advertising, council member bully pulpits and misleading paper editorials. On my street, everyone I talked to except for one was in favor of the amendments. Clearly, most of the people I talked to did not have an implementation-level understanding of the propositions and it sometimes took a few minutes to explain to them what the amendments were trying to do, but every last one of them mentioned the $36 million figure which was found to be erroneous by state court and was ordered removed from the ballot language. Councilmembers McCracken, Dunkerly and Mayor Wynn owe the City's CIO an enormous thank-you fruit basket for that estimate...

But what troubles me most is not the deceptive advertising or the lax journalism, but what could be the overarching reason why the amendments didn't pass. Again, using my precinct as a lab, Will Wynn and Brewster McCracken won re-election (82% and 74%, respectively) who are possibly the most pro-growth council members/mayors in recent history. Props 4 (64%) and 5 (75%), which had to do with increasing term limits and increasing campaign contributions, also passed easily. Let's also assume that voters were swayed by the deceptive advertising which was funded almost entirely by developers and their sub-industries PACs. That means, in my precinct, one of the few precincts where Barton Springs actually touches and runs through, it appears that a majority of my neighbors are pro-industry, pro-developer and pro-growth over environmental protection of one of Austin's greatest natural treasures or my exhaustive research into the amendments are completely and utterly wrong. I'm not comfortable with either conclusion...

Now, it's true that my neighbors may not have had the time to go through all the amendments and really understand what they were voting on but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and at least assume that there was a cursory examination. So, in my precinct, located in the 78704 zipcode, the supposed hub of granola-crunching, tree-hugging environmentalism of Austin; Progressivism has died not by kicking and screaming, but by a flat-out majority suffocation. It seems to have been replaced by what I'll call "Closet Conservatism." You might know what I'm talking about here. It's like State Proposition 2 from 2004 which banned gay marriage here in Texas. That was an issue where people were quick to announce their support in front of their friends and family who may be gay but then secretly voted against it in the voting booth. The Barton Springs protection issue seems to be the 2006 version of the gay marriage amendment in my precinct...

I'll be honest. A non-progressive Austin is an Austin that scares me. I come from Dallas and lived there for 17 years and I loathe to see Austin turn into Dallas. I am not one of those people that find Trammell Crow developments on every other street corner attractive. I don't really care to have a Starbuck's within easy driving distance so it doesn't cost me more than that cup of coffee in gas to drive my SUV through the drive-thru. And I certainly don't care to see one of my most cherished things I love about Austin, Barton Springs and the accompanying greenbelt, something I use on nearly a daily basis, get paved over by the Trammell Crows and AMDs of the world. So the question is: What do we do now?

For starters, if my precinct is any measure, the election results should be challenged on the misleading ballot language. As I mentioned before, all that one needs to do is show that news report on News8 the day after the election as evidence in court to show that the ballot language was confusing and was not understood by a majority of the citizens. Also, I can't help but wonder how citizen-sponsored amendments, each of which required 20,000 signatures on a petition, managed to garner just over half of that number in support in the final election. I would think that the same 20,000 people who were motivated enough to sign the petitions should have been motivated enough to go to the ballot box. I know that you will never get 100% of those people out to the voting booth but just over 50% seems a bit low. And finally, we need to really keep a skeptical eye on this city council and it's future actions. As shown in the double-speak of the ballot language of Prop 5, the misrepresentation of Props 1 & 2, the "surprise" announcement of the new Green Water treatment plant location as well as the grandfathering of the AMD property, this council seems to go to great lengths to cloak their intentions. Hopefully, the incoming new council members will not be bullied by other members of the council and they will hold true to their campaign promises.

When I first started blogging about this issue, it wasn't because I was for or against these particular amendments. It was my belief that certain council members were not being honest to their constituents, purposefully muddying the waters to possibly benefit their campaign contributors instead of the people they are supposed to represent. After this election, I'm left with the disappointment that I find myself no longer in a progressive majority or that Austin is moving away from its environmental roots. Neither of those conclusions gives me the warm fuzzies for the coming years...