ABILENE WITH DISTRICT NO HISPANIC CONSIDERS TRUSTEES, NEW VOTING SYSTEM
PROPONENTS URGE SINGLEMEMBER DISTRICTS, HOPING TO USHER IN MORE DIVERSITY.
Sprawling over 110 square miles on the edge of the West Texas plains, Abilene is a city of ethnic diversity — at leas t on paper. Its school district is 43
percent Hispanic, 39 percent Anglo and 12 percent African-American.
But Abilene’s school board is 100 percent white. Six of the seven members of the board live clustered in three afflffluent neighborhoods, including the neighborhood of stately brick homes and manicured lawns around Abilene Christian University and gated mansions surrounding Lake Lytle.
“If you don’t live in those neighborhoods, it’s hard to get funding and backing,” said Samuel García, an Abilene insurance agent who has lost three bids for the school board and who lives in a traditionally Hispanic area of the city. “Those hurdles make it hard for the average citizen to campaign over the entire city of 120,000 people.”
Earlier this year, García’s opponent raised three times as much money as he
did. Even though García won a majority of voting precincts, he lost in two afflfflu
ent neighborhoods with higher-than-average turnout.
Members of Abilene’s Latino community say such results prove it is long past time for the school district to abandon its at-large system and embrace a single-member district voting system as a way to bring more diversit y to its school board.
An American-Statesman analysis found deep patterns of under-representation of Latinos in local governments across the
state. In many areas, the
fifight for wider representation over the years often has centered on at-large voting systems, which critics say allow Anglo candidates to ignore minority populations by tapping into wealt hi er donors and a support base that votes more.
As a result of lawsuits or elections aimed at increasing representation among minorit y communities, at-large voting has been replaced by single-member districts in many cities and school districts. By dividing a city into smaller geographical districts, often containing ethnic clusters, advocates say, the system gives minority candidates a better chance at winning.
Overall, school boards are providing increasing opportunity to Hispanic candidates. During the past two decades, the number of Hispanic school board members in Texas has nearly doubled to more than 1,000 — far outpacing relatively slow Hispanic growth on city councils and county commissioners courts, according to data from the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Offifficials.
Yet in recent years, federal court de cisions have made it increasingly difficult to replace at-large systems through lawsuits, voting rights activists said.
And since a 2013 Supreme Court decision lifted a part of the Voting Rights Act requiring the Department of Justice to assess whether such changes limit minorit y voting, some jurisdictions are seeking to undo their single-member districts. The Pasadena Cit y Council and Galveston school board are among those considering restoring at-large systems.
Jim Brewer, whose l aw firm successfully sued to force school districts in Ir v i n g an d Grand Prairie to shift to single - member districts, said the vast majority of voting rights complaints his fifirm hears relate to schools as opposed to city or coun ty governments. “People are passionate about (school districts),” he said. “It’s where the rubber meets the road.”
Uncomfortable conversation
At more than 17,000 students, Abilene’s district is the 69th largest of more than 1,200 districts in the state. While the city’s population is just a quarter Hispanic, Latino children are poised to soon make up the majority in the city’s schools.
Proponents of single-member districts are hoping the Abilene board choose s to vote to change its at-large election system. Such voluntary adoptions are extremely rare; most changes only come after lawsuits or a popular referendum.
Yet a 1984 lawsuit against the school district claiming the at-large system put minorities at a disadvantage was dismissed. Three votes to force the City Council, which also uses an at-large system, to adopt single member districts failed between 1978 and 1984. The city still uses an at-large system.
School board reformers were encouraged this spring when the board put the issue on its agenda after community members pushed for it. “We know it’s not always a comfortable conversation to have, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations can be pushed to the side,” said Abilene community organizer Drew Bowen.
At a recent school board meeting, however, trustees appeared hesitant to embrace the change.
Board President Dr. Danny Wheat said he didn’t believe Hispanic parents are afraid to approach him, saying he often hears from people across the school district. “I am really getting a pretty diverse representat ion throughout the community,” he said after the September meeting. “People have been very open to me voicing concerns. A lot of them just call me.”
But Garc ía, who served one term on the board eight years ago when he beat two
other Hispanic candidates, said Hispanic parents still come to him with their school-related concerns — a sign the community needed Hispanic representation on the board. “They get on the phone an d call myself or other Hispanic leaders well before they will call a school board member,” García said. “So we can bring those problems they won’t necessarily bring to anyone else.”
Wheat said he also worries that it will make it harder for the board to come to a consensus if members represent difffffffffffferent geographic areas. “That’s a legitimate question. We certainly want to look at that,” he said.
At the board’s Se ptember meeting, trustees also made plans to visit a neigh
boring district that has set up a leadership academy to
help train would-be school board candidates, whic h several said could help the district increase diversit y.
Supporters of single-member districts said they fear the board is pursuing such small change s instead of implementing single-member districts. “This is a city that lives in a vacuum,” said Bill Enriquez, head of the Hispanic Leadership Council. “The problem is the people in the power structure who think they have all the answers and it doesn’t work that way. Single-member districts will break it up and make it more fair for every individual in town if they want to run for offiffice.”
Single - member districts don’t guarante e minority representation on a governing board. The school district in Odessa, a two-hour drive to the west, has had single-member districts for decades, but currently has an all-white school board despite a school district that is more than 73 percent Hispanic.
Julian Bridges, a former Abilene Cit y Council member, said that with capable residents such as Garcia waiting in the wings he doesn’t think electing Hispanic candidates would be a problem. But it remains to be seen if Abilene will reach that point.
“We are cautiously exploring, to make sure we know what a single-member district (system) is,” said Trustee Angie Wiley. “We are a small community. I think it might work very well for a large district, but we want to fifind out what’s the best thing for our smaller community.”