The voter-approved Proposition A designed to give City Council members more say over the weekly agenda is forcing Houston leaders to balance the spirit of the proposition with good governance.
Council on Wednesday gave final approval in a 13-2 vote to the rules that will govern how the proposition plays out in practice, including an amendment that allows council-driven items to skip the existing committee process designed to vet legislation and proceed directly to the full council. Council members, who approved the amendment, said it was necessary to follow the spirit of the city charter amendment.
“It’s a no win. You either have to respect the spirit of Prop A and have a suboptimal legislative process, or you can not respect the spirit of Prop A and have a more efficient process,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.
Proposition A was a citizen-led ballot initiative approved by voters last November. The proposition gave council members a power that is common in municipalities across the country but somewhat alien in Houston’s strong-mayor form of government: the ability for council members to add items to the agenda without input from the mayor.
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The proposition’s one sentence of text allows “three or more council members, by written request, to have item(s) placed on the agenda of a regular city council meeting and to have such item(s) considered by council.” The proposition did not spell out a clear process for how it should be implemented by the city.
When Mayor John Whitmire took office in January, he quickly established the Proposition A Committee, one of 12 committees tasked with reviewing legislation before it appears before the full council. The Proposition A Committee was designed to aid council members with drafting and vetting legislation and is the only committee specifically for measures originating from members.
For months, members have complained the committee creates unnecessary red tape and violates the spirit of Proposition A. The committee has struggled to gather a quorum of members and advance legislation because of disruptions from the May derecho and Hurricane Beryl earlier this month, council members said Wednesday.
The Proposition A Committee is made up of the council’s entire 16 members, so at least nine are required to be present to establish a quorum.
To overcome that hurdle, however, District A Council Member Amy Peck proposed the rules be amended to allow the three authors of any council-led measure to agree to bypass the committee if a quorum of members cannot attend the measure’s committee hearing.
That amendment and the rules themselves languished for several months in the Proposition A Committee because members had been unable to establish a quorum to advance them to the full council.
“My concern was that we sometimes just wouldn’t have a quorum and couldn’t get items to get out of committee, and if something was referred to the committee from this body it would keep dying in the committee,” Peck said. “This amendment aims to change that.”
During Wednesday’s debate, Whitmire, a former 50-year member of the Texas Legislature where a well-established committee process is in place, balked at the idea of legislation advancing from a committee without a quorum of its members present to approve it.
“I don’t know of another body, and I’ve been in the legislature for 50-plus years, you just don’t start without a quorum,” Whitmire said. “It’s kind of fundamental.”
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The petition drive to create the proposition did not start because of Whitmire, but it is his problem to deal with now.
After years of former Mayor Sylvester Turner presiding over City Council with an iron fist, setting the council agenda largely without council input, a coalition of liberal and conservative political groups launched the petition drive in an effort to give those in the ideological minority more input in the council’s business.
Despite gathering the necessary 20,000 signatures, the coalition had to wait two years for the issue to come before voters after City Council, at the behest of Turner, delayed the election until last November.
“Because of Turner’s calendar manipulation, Whitmire is the one dealing with Prop A under his watch because Turner kicked the can down the road on the proposition long enough that he never had to deal with it,” Jones said.
The proposition easily passed, and Turner, who was term limited, left office two months later.
Whitmire said he supported the proposition while he was on the campaign trail for mayor last fall, but he said the proposition would not be necessary under his administration because he would actively seek council input.
Upon taking office, Whitmire reestablished the council’s committee system, which was rarely used during Turner’s tenure.
“I truly believe you have the right to get anything before the council,” Whitmire told the members Wednesday. “I was looking for an effective system to allow the public to have more input (and) get some more expertise involved in the discussion.”
He called the establishment of a quorum “fundamental to good governance” and encouraged members to attend the committee meetings so legislation can advance.
“The solution is to show up,” Whitmire said. “Then your constituents are going to watch if you care enough about the city’s business to show up.”
District J Council Member Edward Pollard said the realities of City Hall make that difficult for the council members, many of whom hold full-time jobs while balancing other council obligations throughout the week.
“I know this is a little different from what is done at other levels of government, but for us to get nine members there consistently is going to be a tall task,” Pollard said.
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