Two separate efforts are underway to either review or change Little Rock's form of government as it relates to mayoral powers and the makeup of the Board of Directors.
A state House bill proposed this week by Rep. John Walker, a Democrat from Little Rock, would require cities that follow a city manager form of government like Little Rock does to do away with at-large board seats if members of minority groups make up at least 10 percent of the cities' populations.
Walker said he had his hometown in mind when filing the bill, but four other Arkansas cities could be affected -- Texarkana, Hope, Arkadelphia and Hot Springs.
For Little Rock, the change would mean taking its 11-member board down to seven ward-elected seats and eliminating three at-large positions.
House Bill 1952 is the third time in the past decade that Walker has sought to do away with at-large seats, which he says disenfranchise black voters and enable white people to be more easily elected, giving them more power and thus canceling out the votes by the ward-elected board members who are black.
There are questions about how his bill would affect the powers of the mayor, who in at least some of the cities has a voting seat on the board.
Discussion Tuesday by the Little Rock Board of Directors on the bill's possible effect on the mayor position prompted Ward 2 City Director Ken Richardson to suggest an evaluation of Little Rock's hybrid form of government, which includes both a city manager and so-called strong mayor.
Typically, a town with a city manager would have a part-time ceremonial mayor who serves as a voting member and chairman of the city's board. In Little Rock, however, the mayor position is considered the city's top executive, is full time and has veto and appointment power. The city manager controls day-to-day operations.
Richardson wants the board to review how that hybrid form of government has fared over the past eight years and decide whether it should be changed.
Walker's Bill
Walker, a civil-rights attorney, has long argued alongside other black activists that having board seats elected by the city at large makes it more difficult for members of a minority group to get on the board.
He proposed similar legislation in 2011, but it didn't get out of committee.
In 2007, he filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the at-large election practice violated the federal Voting Rights Act. That case was ultimately dismissed at his request.
"In Little Rock in particular, you have one section of town basically electing or disproportionately being represented in the governing legislature of the city, while the others are underrepresented," Walker said, pointing out that three of 11 seats are held by black people despite the fact that minority races are the majority of the city's population.
The 2010 Census showed that 49 percent of the city is white, 42 percent is black, and 9 percent is of another race or of mixed race.
Under-representation leads to fewer resources devoted to areas of town where people from minority groups live and keeps minority-group members from being appointed to committees, Walker said. His 2007 lawsuit made the point that "whites vote for whites and blacks vote for blacks."
Currently, 74.5 percent of Little Rock's committee and commission members are white, 23 percent are black, 1.1 percent are Asian, 1.4 percent are "other." None are Hispanic.
Walker's bill would require Board of Director seats to be elected and divided by zones and for the process to comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Arkansas Municipal League Attorney Mark Hayes said no court has ruled that at-large elections violate that act.
"I don't think that it is an axiomatic conclusion that the method that Little Rock is currently using to select board members runs afoul of the Voting Rights Act. Effectively, that's what the first part of this bill reads and if it became statue, then the state of Arkansas would be making a policy statement that the current method runs afoul ... I disagree with that," Hayes said.
Little Rock City Manager Bruce Moore takes issue with the bill because it takes away local control of the issue.
Mayor Mark Stodola agreed that the matter of the board's makeup should be left up to the voters, though he said he is OK with working with either forms of city board -- one with only ward-elected positions or one with a combination of ward seats and at-large seats.
When voters approved changing from a board in which all of the seats were elected at large to one with ward-specific positions, an argument was made to keep three at-large seats so those members could advocate for the city as a whole.
At-large City Director Joan Adcock opposes Walker's bill. She has said that while ward directors are concerned with their specific geographic area, at-large members look at the bigger picture of how certain policies and codes affect the entire city.
Little Rock Mayor's Powers
Walker said his intent with the bill is not to change how mayors are elected, but some question whether it would.
Little Rock City Attorney Tom Carpenter, for example, said Little Rock would no longer have a popularly elected mayor under the bill's terms.
The mayor is currently the 11th board member and votes in the event of a tie. Since Walker's bill dictates the board's makeup, it contradicts another law that sets up mayoral powers, Carpenter said.
"It creates a problem because you'd have two different acts that talk about electing a city body," he said. "There is no provision in there for the mayor."
Reached by phone to respond to Carpenter's interpretation, Walker said the bill doesn't keep the mayor from being elected by the city at large.
Hayes of the Municipal League said the issue of the mayor is a gray area in the bill.
"Arguably, Carpenter is right," Hayes said. "The bill might affect that position because if you had to restructure the board, that's an at-large vote."
Richardson, the Ward 2 director, said it's time that the board reviews the mayor's role regardless of whether the bill becomes law.
Voters switched to a strong mayor with an August 2007 special election in which they gave the mayor veto and appointment power, and hiring and firing control over the city manager and city attorney, with the board's approval.
"After eight years, we may want to internally do an evaluation to see if in fact we have gotten what we expected to get and whether we need to reevaluate our form of government," Richardson said Tuesday.
Stodola was out of town and not present for the board's discussion. When reached by phone Wednesday to comment on Richardson's proposal, he said it's clear that the strong mayor structure has worked.
"You don't have a business with 2,400 employees and 17 different departments that operates in excess of $189 million a year and expect you are going to have just one person that is controlling all the responsibilities there," Stodola said.
He said having a city manager handling day-to-day operations and having a mayor being the top executive concentrating on policy and pushing the city in the right direction is the best way to go. If he had his way, the mayor would have even more power, he said, particularly the right to hire and fire department heads. Currently, the city manager controls that.
Richardson initially suggested that the board immediately begin its evaluation, but Carpenter said it should wait until after the Legislature is out of session.
"[The state Legislature] can set boundaries. To evaluate whether we should change boundaries before we know for sure whether the boundaries are going to change doesn't make a whole lot of sense," Carpenter said.