Humanist Program: Columbus’s Discriminatory At-Large City Council Elections

"TRUMPED! Bamboozling the People: The Silent Conspiracy to Maintain Columbus’s Discriminatory At-Large City Council Elections"

Under pressure from constituents and the federal government, every other large city in America has abandoned the at-large system of electing city council members that had been an early 20th century reform. While at-large voting systems were originally pushed by business magnates and social elites in part to maintain Irish and Anglo political control of cities from newly-arriving German and Italian immigrants, demographic changes through the 20th century along with this form of government resulted in the political disenfranchisement of Black Americans, which was made unlawful in most circumstances by the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Austin, Texas and Columbus, Ohio have maintained their at-large voting systems in part through political manipulations of both candidates and the electorate process to avoid flagrant VRA violation. Learn more about the history of at-large city elections and Columbus, and challenge your thinking about our community as we expose the systems and strategies its powerful have used to fool the people into an embrace of this relic of our country’s nativist, nationalistic and racist past.

Jonathan C. Beard works to promote opportunity for all people. For the past 20 years, he served as President and CEO of Columbus Compact Corporation, overseeing and implementing strategies designed to revitalize Columbus’s most distressed neighborhoods. The insights and experiences of that position led him to promote and Co-Chair the Issue 1 campaign for electoral reform in August 2016 -- the first time citizens had put a charter amendment proposal on the ballot.

Prior to working at the Compact, Beard served as Assistant Bureau Chief in the Ohio Department of Human Services Office of Medicaid, working on the expansion of Medicaid managed care. Beard serves on the Board of Trustees of Ohio Dominican University, and co-chairs the Political Awareness Committee of the Columbus Action Network, and has served with dozens of other local nonprofit and community advocacy groups. Beard has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master of Public Administration from The Ohio State University School of Public Policy and Management. Originally from Cleveland, he is a 25 year resident of Columbus, married with two children.

Join us at 11:30 for pizza in the meeting room! The formal program starts at 12:00.