Why are San Marcos City Council elections so bad?
First, every person in the city can vote for every city council position. (In other words, they’re all at-large.) At-large elections have a very problematic, racist past. Generally, it works like this: Suppose your city is 70% white and 30% black. The white majority can elect their favorite candidate in every single council election, and so a city ends up electing a 100% white city council.
What’s the solution? Usually, single-member districts. This means dividing the city into six equal parts, and each part gets to elect one city council member. We do this for school board elections already. (Probably the mayor would still be elected at-large.) If we had single-member districts, then the candidate would have to live in the district they represented, so we would have city council members from all over San Marcos. It’s also easier on the candidate, because they can focus on a smaller region and concentrate their efforts.
So, lawsuits get filed. The SMCISD school board was sued in the mid-90s for having all at-large elections. (Could not find any record of it online, beyond #60 listed here by the lawyer who brought the lawsuit. That’s when they went to 5 single-member districts and 2 at-large positions.) Austin, San Antonio, New Braunfels, and Seguin are all single-member districts because they’ve all been sued or struggled over it. Austin here, San Antonio here. There’s a whole chapter on Seguin here. And here is a fascinating Washington Post article from 1983, on MALDEF bringing lawsuits against Lockhardt, Corpus Christi, and Lubbock. The last sentence in the article is:
Last week MALDEF filed suits affecting city council systems in Pecos and Port Lavaca, and school districts in New Braunfels, Port Lavaca and Pecos.
So there you have it: 1983. ANYWAY. Who still has all at-large districts in 2022? We do! Boo, hiss!
But wait! There’s more! We have a peculiar system of declaring places. Right now, we have four candidates for city council – Max Baker, Matt Mendoza, Saul Gonzalez, and Adam Arndt. Suppose my favorite candidates are Max and Matt, and I don’t like Saul or Adam. Well, I’m stuck, because Place 1 is Max vs Matt, and Place 2 is Saul vs Adam. I can’t vote for my favorite slate of candidates. That’s not the best way to elect a council that reflects the choice of the people.
Declaring places does not serve a purpose for elections. We could say that Max, Matt, Saul, and Adam are competing for two spots, and all the voters get to cast two votes. (We do this with judges, for example.) Then the top two candidates would win the two slots.
In my opinion, we should switch to single-member districts. (But you could easily convince me to try Ranked Choice Voting, also known as Instant Run-off Voting, or multi-member districts, or one of the other innovative electoral systems out there.)
The San Marxist 
I’ve never thought of it this way, but you’re absolutely right. The way I’ve always seen it is that if someone does not like an incumbent, then they get to run against them. But that system also doesn’t work if they maybe think one incumbent isn’t doing a great job, but they also don’t want to piss them off by running against them and then ruin all chances at a positive relationship in the future (kinda like the Jane H./John T. saga). Also, I liked Matt and Max and wish I could have had those two elected, like in your “example”.
LikeLike
Yes! One unexpected benefit of Ranked Choice Voting that has shown up in places like Alaska is very similar to what you’re describing. If you’re pitching yourself as the 2nd place choice to people who support Candidate X, then you’re unlikely to badmouth Candidate X. It ends up that Ranked Choice Voting fosters a much less negative campaign process, and leaves politicians on the far side of the election in a much better position to actually work together.
LikeLike