Opinion: Norwalk Charter Revision: We Almost Got A Fairer Way to Elect The Council

DISCLAIMER: The following letter is both long and wonky.  If you don’t have an interest in Norwalk’s city government, the Charter that forms the foundation for it, or the political machinations that result in what you see on the ballot, then you might choose to read no further.  I shared a draft of this letter with a knowledgeable person, and they responded, earnestly, that I should not be wasting my time writing this letter, because:

1. Most people don’t care about this stuff, and
2. There are more urgent local issues that need to be addressed right now

Both observations are 100% correct.  However, I care, and I care enough to want to hold our local government to higher standards and help to find meaningful solutions to real problems. And I intend to get to #2 in a future letter. So, with this disclaimer, you may wish to stop reading here.

Last week we came very close to addressing a perennial problem with Norwalk’s city government: lopsided single party rule.  Of the 25-policy facing elected positions (Mayor, 15 Council members, and 9 Board of Ed members), all but one are held by local Democratic Party nominees.  The one exception is District D Independent Party Council member Heather Dunn.  So, by holding the mayor’s office, 93% of the Common Council seats, and 100% of the Board of Ed seats for each of the last 3 municipal elections, we might think that the Democratic Party candidates were the overwhelming choice of Norwalk’s voters.  But that is not the case.  Looking only at the 2023 election for the five at-large (i.e. elected city-wide by all voters) Common Council seats (full disclosure: I was a Republican Party candidate for one of those seats; zero Republicans were elected to municipal office that year), the top five vote getters all were Democratic Party candidates and thus were awarded the five at-large Council seats.

However, looking at the election results, the winning candidates earned only 55% of the votes cast, yet they were awarded 100% of the seats.  The voters who cast the other 45% of the votes are left without even a single winning candidate to represent them for any of those five seats.  This election system fails those 45% of voters, while disproportionately advantaging the majority party, and effectively stifling independent voices with alternative viewpoints and different concerns.

This is a common problem with multi-winner elections such as our Common Council: a lack of proportional representation affording minority parties and their candidates a seat at the table.  Electoral solutions have been developed to address this exact problem, including:

1. Minority Party Representation
2. Cumulative Voting
3. “Majority Cap”

There are others, but for brevity I will discuss only these.

Minority Party Representation (MPR) is the default solution available under Connecticut state law: it explicitly prevents a single party from gaining more than a certain number of seats in an elected body.  Under state law, all Boards and Commissions may not have a single political party having membership greater than a simple majority (half the total members plus one).  This structure requires minority participation regardless of electoral outcomes. Many CT cities and towns have MPR requirements for their legislative bodies in their Charters. State law requires MPR for elected at-large town councils, but Norwalk can, and does, evade this rule by also having district representatives elected to its council.

Cumulative Voting (CV) is a type of election system often used in multi-winner elections (like Norwalk’s at-large Council members). Under CV, voters may cast as many votes as there are seats to fill, but they may distribute those votes in any way they please, allowing them to concentrate their voting power on one or more favored candidates. If it were applied to Norwalk’s at-large Council election, each voter would have five votes (to fill the 5 at-large seats) but could cast all five for a single candidate, or divide their votes among 2, 3 or 4 candidates, or cast one vote for each of five candidates (as required under the existing system).  Like now, the candidates with the most votes win.

Incumbents and major parties typically oppose CV because it allows insurgents and minor parties to wage successful campaigns versus the existing system of one vote only per candidate which leaves minority viewpoints shut out by the majority party. Academics who study voting systems generally agree that CV offers the fairest and most democratic solution to create the possibility of an otherwise disenfranchised minority party or voting bloc to gain representation without mandating it.  Sadly, cumulative voting is not (yet) permitted under CT state law.  It should be, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for our major party and majority party state legislators to improve our democratic system by permitting this type of change.

Majority Cap is a method used to prevent a majority party from claiming all seats in a multi-winner election. Under this arrangement, each party is limited in the number of candidates it may nominate for a multi-winner election, with the number being fewer than the total seats available.  This method resembles MPR by its outcome, but it ensures the highest vote getters are declared winners. Danbury, Hamden, West Haven and other CT towns use this method explicitly to prevent single party monopoly of elected seats.

Norwalk’s nine-member Charter Revision Commission (CRC) considered multiple proposals to implement MPR for future Council elections.  All were rejected by Commission votes, and when the CRC sent its recommended Charter changes to the Council on May 28, there were no provisions to address the lack of proportional representation in either the Council or the Board of Ed. Interestingly, while the CRC would not recommend an MPR provision, it discussed and adopted a proposal to add one additional Council member to each of the five districts, expanding the Council from 15 to 20 members. The proponents viewed this proposal as offering to serve two purposes: 1) reduce the work burden (such as Committee assignments) of each Council member by sharing it among a larger number, and 2) creating five additional seats that unrepresented minority party voters and their candidates could aspire to and which district voters might award them.

Meeting to review the CRC recommendations on July 14, the Council unanimously rejected expanding the Council from 15 to 20 members. However, at that same meeting, District A Council Member Jalin Sead, citing numerous public comments expressing a lack of representation in the Council, introduced an amendment to add two at-large Council members, raising the number to seven, but also imposing a majority cap whereby no party could nominate more than five candidates for the seven available seats. Discussion of this amendment continued into the next Council meeting on July 22, and it was adopted with a vote of 8 in favor and 6 opposed.  Council member Dunn was not present. Following process, this amendment was next forwarded back to the CRC which would then determine whether or not to include it in the final Charter Revision recommendation.  The CRC largely embraced the Council’s recommended amendment, voting at its July 30 meeting 7 to 1 in favor of adding two at-large Council seats, and 8-0 in favor of limiting party endorsed candidates to 5 of the 7.  

Wow! With both the Council and the CRC now supporting the solution devised by Council member Sead, it seemed likely that Norwalk was ready to at least partially address the problem of single party rule and lack of proportional representation.  Progress!  And consensus!  

Alas, that was not to be.  Immediately following a lengthy closed door private party caucus meeting attended by the 14 Democratic Council members and the Mayor, the full Council held its scheduled Special Meeting one week ago, on August 20, to accept or reject the Final Report from the CRC.  The first item of business was a (intentionally opaque?) motion made by Council member Johan Lopez “to strike Section 3-4 a 2 and Section 3 -3 c 2” from the Charter Revision to be adopted.  After brief comments by Council member Lopez supporting his motion and Sead opposing it, the Mayor was ready to call a vote, until Independent Party Council member Heather Dunn requested that the amendment proposal changes be shared on the screen so that it could be clear to everyone in attendance, including members of the public, exactly what was being considered. This helped make it clear the amendment sought to completely reverse the two at-large Council seat additions and the majority cap limitation restricting parties to no more than 5 candidates for the seven seats.  

Wait, what?  Did something change?  Apparently yes, but not anything that a member of public could ever know about – the motion passed, with a vote of 9 in favor and 6 opposed, thereby repealing the majority cap change.  Three of the Council members who supported this expansion of democracy and fairness a month earlier now voted to remove it: Barbara Smyth, and the two District C DTC appointed council members Anne Wennerstrand (https://www.nancyonnorwalk.com/anne-wennerstrand-fills-district-c-vacancy-on-common-council/) and Nicole Eaddy (https://www.nancyonnorwalk.com/norwalk-dems-fill-one-vacant-council-seat/).

What happened?  Of course, the Council could have retained this charter change and simply present it as a stand-alone referendum item, as it chose to do with 4-year terms and Council pay raise.  That way the Council could have let Norwalk’s voters decide on whether this is a fair way to allow non-Democratic party candidates to win a seat at the table. But no – Norwalk’s voters won’t be given that choice – perhaps the 9 council members who made that decision simply couldn’t trust the voters. In summary: the Council majority was fine with 4-year terms for Mayor and Council members, was fine with raising Council pay (long overdue, imo), but allow the voters who don’t choose to vote for Democratic party nominees to have a chance to be represented—that’s a NOPE!  That said, I would like to express sincere appreciation for the six council members, including five Democrats, who voted to retain the change the Council had recommended earlier, and were willing to put the voters’ needs ahead of their party’s needs: Nicol Ayers, Heather Dunn, Nora Niedzielski-Eichner, Jalin Sead Sr., Dajuan Wiggins Sr., and Darlene Young. Courage is contagious!  And oh, sudden disappointment really hurts!

The future: for now, things likely will stay as they are.  I don’t see meaningful changes to the two major political parties either at the national level or at the local level, although one can always hope!  And frankly, I don’t envision a major realignment of Norwalk’s voters. 

Still, I would remind Norwalkers that our city badly needs an effective opposition party, to speak truth to power and demand answers to the questions that aren’t being asked but need to be.  We will have another municipal election this November, at which the Charter Revision will be proposed as three referendum questions, and candidates will vie for Mayor, all 15 Council seats (full disclosure again, I am a candidate for Common Council in District D), and 4 at-large Board of Ed seats.  

PLEASE take the time to learn about the candidates and the issues important to you, and vote in this election.  Meet the candidates, ask them hard questions, don’t accept platitudes for answers, and if things don’t make sense keep asking until they do.  There are some good candidates running – get to know them now, when they want your vote and will take the time to speak with you!  Always, I remain hopeful that we can add more independent voices to our elected bodies this year.

Finally: our state’s legislature should advance democracy in municipal elections by permitting the use of cumulative voting for multi-winner contests. If cumulative voting ever becomes an option, I expect our Council to adopt it for Norwalk because it is much fairer than what we have now. Let’s hope.

Thanks!  Please vote on November 4^th.

Editor’s note: This is an opinion piece. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NancyOnNorwalk.