Recently, I was discussing our new voting system here in Oakland with an informed person whose opinions I value. He believes the Instant Runoff Voting Oakland will use in November will favor incumbents. His statement surprised me, so we started chatting about it.
I mentioned to him that most places in the world use proportional representation. He looked a bit confused and repeated "the world," as if he was not really familiar with it. Hopefully this was a joke, as I plan to introduce ideas from "the world" throughout my mayoral campaign. Surprising to some, interesting things happen out in the white space around the map of the USA. Some examples:
Proportional Representation
Let’s consider Proportional Representation. This is the radical idea—to some of Oakland’s political insiders—that your vote will get counted and your group will get seats (say on the City Council) equal to the percentage of votes. Proportional representation is the law in little places like Germany and Mexico. Considering Mexico, one needs to ask where Mr. De La Fuente is coming from by saying that IRV will confuse Latinos. Mexico and most of Latin America use proportional representation, constitutional mandates, and term limits. And, all Mexican elections term incumbents out. I believe Oakland’s Latin American voters have a more sophisticated voting background than we do. They also have something we do not: opposition political groups that actually get elected. Is it possible that Mr. De La Fuente is confused?
Regional Transit
Our current public transit system is an embarrassment. The competition, turf wars, and lack of coordination around the Bay Area transit districts—with vague overlapping authorities—is a bigger mess than most of us even know. One could visit other cities inside and outside of the USA and find transit that is actually integrated and works well together. A key leadership priority for Oakland’s next mayor is to demand better overall planning while vigorously opposing the amateur pet projects that abound in the current leadership vacuum under which citizens suffer. We can look from Portland to Moscow and find better public transit options than our own. Maybe we should stop and have a look.
Restorative Justice
This is the idea that a community can often deal with young people involved in crimes better than putting them into institutions. A common form of RJ is to have a community meeting with a youth who has chosen to acknowledge their issues and participate in a diversion plan. The meeting is open to all community and neighborhood members, including the crime victims, the family, and representatives of the Police and the City and/or County. Then a restoration plan is made for the offender that involves restitution and integration into the community. This often appears as some sort of pay back or punishment or some kind of work and school. But, guess what? It works! This is being done in Wellington New Zealand very well. Other cities around the world invite the Wellington Police to advise them. We should too. Other programs as close as San Jose work well too.
So, it turns out that "the world" is a rich place with many excellent and proven ideas to examine. Let's keep this in mind as we try to solve Oakland’s most important issues and harvest its yet undiscovered and richest of opportunities—its citizens.
More than anything else, as Mayor I want to break with the rhetoric of “American Exceptional-ism” that we hear so much of when the established politicos hide their ineffectiveness behind the flag. We have been told all our lives that America is so superior and so different that only our own ideas work here and everyone else in the whole world is really not doing things as well as we do, and some clearly are not. But, if holding truly democratic elections, designing better transit, and ensuring better public health for all citizens is important, then we should not fear exercising the leadership necessary to look to "the world" for good ideas—were connected much more than you may think.
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