Geographically Sexual?: Advancing Lesbian and Gay Interests Through Proportional Representation

Authors

Darren Rosenblum, St. John's University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review

Publication Date

1996

Volume

31

First Page

119

Abstract

(Excerpt)

In the 1993 New York City School Board elections, a system of proportional representation allowed lesbians and gay men to elect representatives of their choice. In response to the School Board's plan to introduce the Children of the Rainbow Curriculum, the New York City chapter of the Christian Coalition, an organization of the Christian Right, began an opposition campaign with the slogan "No Sodom on the Hudson" that pitted parents of color against so-called “rich white gays.” Having succeeded in forcing the school chancellor's resignation, the Christian Coalition formulated a plan for the takeover of all New York City school boards. The proportional system of the school board elections, however, provided lesbian and gay communities with the opportunity to use their activism to defeat the homophobia of the Christian Right. By developing widely publicized endorsement slates based on questionnaires sent to all of the candidates, lesbian and gay communities attracted support from a wide range of voters. And on election day—which occurred in the month following the highly successful 1993 Lesbian and Gay March on Washington—lesbians and gay men went to the polls in an unprecedented fashion. As a result, Jon Nalley, the leader of one lesbian and gay-supported slate, garnered the most votes of any school board candidate in the history of New York City, and the entire slate won.

As the overwhelming victory of lesbian and gay interests in the school board elections demonstrates, a proportional representation system can effectively serve the interests of communities that have otherwise been unable to elect sufficient numbers of representatives. This Article focuses specifically on lesbian and gay communities because these communities have been among the least successful in getting their interests represented in the majority-rule districting system—the prevailing electoral system in the United States. Although lesbian and gay communities have increased their political power, few elected officials represent lesbian and gay interests. Furthermore, of the nearly half-million elected officials in the United States, only seventy are openly lesbian or gay. This dearth of representatives has occurred because in a district-based electoral system, only geographically defined lesbian and gay communities have the opportunity to elect officials who represent their interests. Although many lesbians and gay men choose to live in areas with large lesbian and gay populations, sexual orientation has no natural correlation to geography. This lack of a geographic correlation greatly decreases the ability of districting schemes to represent a broad base of lesbian and gay interests. Therefore, a districting system fails to ensure effective interest representation for lesbians and gay men. By contrast, a proportional representation system would greatly expand possibilities for lesbian and gay interest representation.

Part I of this Article explores lesbian and gay interests and representational characteristics. Part II highlights the inadequacies of a single-member districting system in representing the interests of lesbian and gay communities. It concludes with an examination of the New York City Council's 1991 redistricting, where the mobilization of strong lesbian and gay communities in a receptive environment nonetheless failed to lead to effective representation of lesbian and gay interests in the City Council. Part III describes proportional representation systems and reveals how such systems would better serve lesbian and gay communities. Part IV acknowledges the political and legal obstacles to achieving proportional representation. Finally, Part V asserts that both the increasing disenfranchisement of people of color from the electoral process and the high degree of discontent with the system that has been expressed by the general electorate in recent years might facilitate the conversion to a proportional system. To promote a proportional representation system, lesbian and gay communities must form coalitions with other minority communities that remain underrepresented in a districting system. By struggling with others to achieve interest representation, lesbians and gay men will be engaged in the furtherance of a much broader goal of proportional representation-namely, the realization of a more complete democracy.

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