Representation Without Taxation - A Local Government Example

Update: February 5, 2010 (see below)

Alaska and a small utility district in Texas. Who would have thought they could have anything in common. But they do: representation without taxation.

Next month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal by NAMUDNO (Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1), in a case that I discussed in a blog entry a year ago. The utility district is trying to have Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act declared unconstitutional, not the sort of thing most utility district citizens want to spend their hard-earned money on.

According to an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, it turns out that the reason the citizens of the utility district (there is no utility, by the way, just a park) were willing to bring this suit is that they didn't have to put up one dime for it. Conservative organizations were happy to foot the bill, and the lawyer who convinced the district to bring the suit, a former Texas Solicitor General and former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was willing to work pro bono.

A white utility district filing a suit to undermine the Voting Rights Act is a big deal. But that isn't the way it was treated in this Austin suburb.

The utility board treated [the lawyer]'s proposal as a typical agenda item, providing no special notice or opportunities for residents to discuss the issue.

[The utility district member who worked closely with the lawyer] says the legal issues were too complex for lay persons to contribute to the debate. Besides, "apathy is the rule of the day in my neighborhood," he says. "If we called a forum, there'd be a handful of radicals pouring in" to oppose the suit, but "there's no handful of people on my side" certain to attend.

Some residents, though, were disturbed to discover that their utility board had filed suit to invalidate part of the Voting Rights Act. "No one knew about it. It was a stealth action," says Chris Bowers, 40, a computer-engineering manager who has lived in Canyon Creek for eight years. He began attending board meetings to question members about the decision.

"The response was very much, 'We were elected and this is what we're doing, so too bad,' " Mr. Bowers says. Concerned that publicity about the case could damage property values, Mr. Bowers, a Democrat, decided to run for the utility board on an anti-lawsuit platform. In the May 2008 election, he got 179 votes -- first place among the three candidates vying for two seats.

But Bowers had only one of five votes (all of seven citizens showed up at the meeting), and the utility district filed its appeal with the Supreme Court, making the suburb famous throughout Texas and the nation for its racism. Many local governments in eight states affected by Section 5, including the county in which the utility district lies, joined in a brief against NAMUDNO.

Why did this suburb do what it did? Its citizens didn't know and didn't care. Why not? Because they didn't have to pay a penny out of their own pockets. It had nothing to do with them. The perils of representation without taxation.

Update: February 5, 2010
Yesterday, the Austin city council abolished NAMUDNO, a few months after the Supreme Court decision (see point 16 of the minutes). End of story.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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