Chris Tavenor is a nonprofit attorney who lives in the Columbus neighborhood of Eastmoor.
I am one of the petition committee members for the proposed charter amendment supported by Our City, Our Say to reform how we elect our city council members here in Columbus.
When we crafted the language for the proposed amendment, after lengthy conversations with people across Columbus, we knew simplicity was absolutely essential – with a problem so obvious, the solution should be simple.
Columbus City Council, as the capital of Ohio and the home to our state’s democratic institutions, should be a beacon of representative democracy.
Instead, its election system is less democratic than the heavily gerrymandered Ohio General Assembly.
Councilmembers should be accountable
Right now, Columbus elects our city council members through an at-large system with district residential requirements, resulting in a city of over 900,000 people spread over more than 225 square miles voting for every council member.
By comparison, each state house district for the Ohio General Assembly has about 120,000 residents.
Residents of each community in Columbus should feel confident that their representative on Columbus City Council is accountable to them, not voters on the other side of the city.
I live in Eastmoor – I should not have a say in the councilmember representing Clintonville, and vice versa.
Columbus shouldn’t be a sore thumb
The simple solution to this clear problem is to change the language in the Columbus City Charter so each district elects its own representative to the city council.
It’s a system used by the vast majority of the largest cities across the United States, including cities like Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Baltimore and San Francisco.
Columbus should be a leader in progressive, representative democratic systems – not an outlier, using a regressive, confusing at-large model.
However, some skeptics to our proposal consistently cite data claiming shifting away from an at-large system will impact Columbus’s efforts to expand affordable housing and meet the needs of its growing population. Through that counterargument, they attempt to paint the supporters of the proposed amendment as “anti-development” and “anti-affordable housing.”
For instance, we keep hearing references to a Notre Dame Professor Evan Mast, whose study found that in the communities surveyed, housing permits fell by 21% (on average) in communities that shifted from an at-large council system to only a ward-based model.
The word “average” felt important, so I decided to read Mast’s study.
Its conclusion says the following: “I do not measure potential welfare gains from more decentralized control, whether through housing markets or elsewhere (such as increased minority representation from ward voting) … results may not generalize to every situation.”
There is no evidence that Columbus will follow the same story, given our city’s unique circumstances.
As Mast noted, other outcomes exist other than an anti-housing council. Cities like Minneapolis (with a 13-member ward city council) eliminated single-family zoning, “making it more difficult for ward representatives to block denser developments.”
As one of the petition committee members, I am not opposed to more housing, especially affordable housing alongside sustainable development. I actually welcome it. Columbus has an opportunity over the next years and decades to significantly increase density across the city, improving the environmental conditions of its residents while also providing new housing for current and future residents.
Future Columbus city councils, with representatives from across the city who are accountable to the constituents of their districts, can and should solve the housing problem we face.
However, a representative democracy is non-negotiable in 2026.
Columbus City Council President Pro Tempore Rob Dorans hosted a meeting May 3 to discuss reforms to the council election system. I appreciate his efforts to bring people together to discuss this important issue, and I encourage all Columbus residents to use their power and voice to support the efforts of the Our City, Our Say campaign.
I also invite current Columbus City Council members to join the work alongside us, too.
Let’s work together to create the democratic system all residents of Columbus truly deserve.
Chris Tavenor is a nonprofit attorney who lives in the Columbus neighborhood of Eastmoor. They are one of the petition committee members for the proposed Columbus City Charter Amendment to eliminate at-large voting for city council district elections and replace it with district-based voting.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Bogus council districts make Columbus Ohio’s most sliced and diced cities | Opinion
Reporting by Chris Tavenor, Guest Columnist / The Columbus Dispatch
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