The Case for Town Meeting:  Representation

One of the common criticisms of Town Meeting from those who wish to abolish it is that it is not representative of Amherst’s voters.  In fact, I suspect that their real concern is that it is all too representative.  While they point to the frequency with which elections to Town Meeting seats are uncontested,  the age and relative well-being of most town meeting members, the lack of racial and ethnic diversity,  they rarely point to the diversity of opinions, points of view and positions on the issues.  One can be forgiven for thinking that it is this diversity that critics really object to.

How representative is Town Meeting?  My answer is, very.  That is to say, it is representative of the registered voters of the town.  But that begs a more fundamental question: how representative of the town are the registered voters?  Here the answer is more equivocal.  It is in the nature of our community that individuals and families come for a few years and then leave; their degrees are finished, they do not receive tenure, their children grow up.  Many of these families are temporarily poor. Further, we have many long-term residents who are not citizens, who choose to retain their citizenship in their birth countries.  We are, in other words, an educational community.  Not only that, we are an expensive educational communities; the consequence of having so much tax-exempt land in Amherst is very high taxes on the rest of the property.  Many choose to live in the numerous rental developments in town or in less expensive adjacent communities.  So many residents choose not to register to vote in Amherst because they are transient. Other residents would register if they could but they are proscribed by law from either voting for or serving in Town Meeting.

I would remedy this inequity by two changes:  I would allow resident non-citizens to vote in local elections and serve on local boards and in town meeting.  And I would lower the franchise for local elections to age sixteen.  This would allow registered voters to more closely mirror the residents of the town.  But these matters sadly do not belong in this discussion.

So given that town meeting does not and cannot mirror the town’s demography (nor does or would any elected body like a town council),  how representative of differing opinions and positions and even fundamental political philosophies is town meeting?  Here the record is very good.  When the representative town meeting was established in 1938, the membership was deliberately set high: twenty-four members elected from each of the ten precincts.  The thought was that the larger the body the more likely it was to be representative of the diversity of opinion and philosophy in Amherst.  These 240 members did not represent other Amherst voters, they were representative of Amherst voters.  While they were expected to form their own opinions and vote their own minds, by having so many minds it could be reasonably assumed that a wide range of opinions would be represented.  And so it has.  It is easy to be a candidate for a town meeting seat, and so it should be.  But perhaps it should not be quite so easy to win that seat.  Like its opponents, I would gladly see more contested races for town meeting membership.

I am happy with a large representative town meeting.  However, I also believe that a somewhat smaller size can be representative and democratic. There are good reasons to support a smaller number.  Town meeting would be shorter, because fewer voices would ask to be heard.  And it is more likely that these voices would have won their membership in elections that were contested, thus making it more likely that they would be representative of voters who voted in higher numbers.  In 1994 the number I was willing to support was 180.  Today I would consider going even lower.  A smaller town meeting, combined with the electronic voting that will be introduced next year, will make for shorter and more efficient sessions.  And this in turn will make serving in town meeting more appealing to more voters.  Right now the number of members is inscribed in our Town Charter, so a lowering in membership would require a change in the charter.  Perhaps other changes in the charter would enhance town meeting’s representativeness.  If a Charter Commission would  examine these things I would be delighted to support it.

Currently the leaders of Amherst for All have changed their tune a bit - they are now framing the drive for a Charter Commission as an opportunity to “study” our town government.  Great.  Let’s take them at their word.