Single-member districts in Irving? Er, no.

DallasMorningViews | Rod Dreher:

“Why should Irving go to a single-member district form of council government, given how disengaged the vast majority of Irving voters are? Has the Dallas experience been so positive that we would recommend it to Irving too? What evidence do we have that minorities in Irving are being routinely and systematically denied representation on the council?”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Perhaps the disengagement of the vast majority of voters is due to a feeling of powerlessness in the face of a system stacked against them? Not everyone has the optimism and perseverance of a Charlie Brown to believe that this year, unlike last year and the year before that, Lucy won't pull the football away.

Whether the Dallas experience is positive or not is irrelevant. Representative government can be messy. It can be inefficient compared to plutocracies. But Americans still value representative government. When we don't have it, it's not only the unrepresented ethnic groups or classes that suffer. We all suffer.

The evidence that minorities in Irving are being routinely and systematically denied representation is plain. Just look at the makeup of the City Council. It defies rationality that this outcome is due to chance. All citizens should be embarrassed by this outcome. Whether single-member districts is the answer or whether better get-out-the-vote drives are sufficient to achieve representative government are worthy questions to debate. No one should be content with the status quo.