The profound genius of the U.S. Constitution lies not in what it includes, but what it doesn’t include. That body of laws which all federal government employees must swear to uphold and defend hasn’t been amended since 1992 and that amendment, which delays laws affecting congressional salaries from taking affect until after the next election of representatives, finally became the 27th Amendment 202 years and 223 days after it was proposed. The 26th amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18, celebrates its half-century anniversary as a part of the Constitution next July.
Yes, the profound genius of the U.S. Constitution is that is was so well conceived that it hasn’t really needed to be changed all that much in its 231-year history.
Then there’s the Kyle City Charter, which some wags I’ve talked to like to think of as the city’s version of the U.S. Constitution, but, of course, doesn’t come close to the structural integrity of that document. For example, in the misguided minds of city leaders, the city charter needs to be amended at least once every three to five years.
Why? There are many reasons, but I’m going to focus on two. The first is that when looking at possible charter changes no one thinks about whether the exact same objective desired by the charter change could be achieved by another method. “Hey, we want this to happen so let’s stick it in the charter.” Let me give you one example. There’s a provision in the charter that requires the city manager to live within the city limits of Kyle and when this subject came up for debate the argument revolved around whether the city manager should be required to live within the city limits of Kyle. No one, not one single member of the charter review commission or the city council, realized that was NOT the subject that should have been debated — that is, if they really wanted a city governing document that, like the U.S. Constitution, stands the test of time. The debate should have involved whether that requirement belonged in the city charter or could the exact same objective be achieved by another method, say, for example, adopting an ordinance requiring it be included in any employment contract extended to a possible city manager.
Which leads me to the second reason the charter is amended so often. Those city leaders amending the charter today are basically saying they have absolutely no faith, no trust, in the future of this city. They simply assume that everything they believe is right and correct and they damn sure don’t want anyone coming along 50 years from now saying something different. “We are smart,” today’s city officials are saying. “Those that come after us, won’t be as smart as we are.”
Think I’m exaggerating? Council member Dex Ellison flatly said as much during the city council debate Monday night over a convoluted propose change in the charter involving the police department. “My concern,” Ellison said, “is what future councils will do, is what people three, four, five, 10 years from now will do. Will they continue to do all the things we’re talking about?”
But what happens when “all the things we’re talking about” become completely unnecessary or outdated? This new police-related charter change requires the department to use “social media” to make public certain police records and procedures. Fifty years ago, no one ever heard of “social media.” Will it even exist 50 years from today? No one knows for sure. There is absolutely no guarantee that the way information is disseminated today is the way it be disseminated in 2071, the year that will mark the 100th anniversary of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In fact, this proposed charter change has an expiration date in its very language. The last sentence of the proposed change that will be one of the many proposed charter changes on the Nov. 3 ballot reads “The City Council shall adopt an ordinance implementing the terms of this section.” What happens after the council adopts such an ordinance? As written, it could be argued that every new council would have to adopt such an ordinance or, and what is most likely, once such an ordinance is adopted, a future council is going to have to waste voters time and taxpayer money to hold another charter election to strike that sentence from the charter. Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows. It makes no sense.
Don’t get me wrong. The objective desired by the charter change is laudable. But is there any way it could be achieved without changing the charter? We don’t know because no one even bothered to ask the question. If the council has decided it needs to “adopt an ordinance implementing the terms of this section,” why not simply draft, debate and pass such a comprehensive ordinance without going to all the trouble of amending the charter requiring you to take that very step. “Mama, make sure I’m in bed no later than 10.”
The other significant proposed change to the charter would authorize the city council to call elections on non-binding propositions for the purpose of learning how voters react to a certain idea — basically a citizen survey conducted as part of an election. Do you need to change the charter to allow you to call an election to achieve the objective of measuring citizen sentiment? Perhaps. Or, perhaps, the city could hire a reputable polling firm to achieve the same objective without over-burdening an already overburdened charter document not to mention an electorate already overburdened by the number of elections held every year. But, just like in the debate on all the other proposed changes, no one sought to determine whether another means other than amending the charter could be employed to achieve the desired objective.
That’s why the Kyle City Charter is ultimately doomed for the garbage dump. It probably won’t happen in my lifetime — but then I’ve already been on this planet decades longer than any member of the city council — but I can assure you it will happen during my son’s lifetime. Some future city council is going to appoint a group of truly independent thinkers to a charter review commission and those folks are going to realize “Hey, this thing is a mess. Let’s scrap it entirely, and start from scratch and get it right this time. Let’s fashion a municipal constitution that truly does try to emulate the federal one.”
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