{"id":9252,"date":"2015-05-10T03:44:49","date_gmt":"2015-05-10T03:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9252"},"modified":"2015-05-10T03:44:49","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T03:44:49","slug":"demerson-scores-historic-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9252","title":{"rendered":"Demerson scores historic win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Say whatever you want about the tone, tenor and tenacity of the campaign between City Councilman-elect Elisha Demerson and the incumbent he defeated today, Ellen Robertson Green.<\/p>\n

Demerson’s victory is historic in that an African-American has been elected to a citywide public office.<\/p>\n

The city’s at-large voting plan has been a point of contention among civil rights groups, minority-oriented political action organizations and citizens interested in changing the plan to a single-member district voting plan.<\/p>\n

They’ve contended the at-large plan puts minority candidates at a disadvantage. Amarillo’s black population is less than 10 percent, so it stands to reason — those activists contend — that black candidates fare poorly when they put their names up before a voting public that doesn’t “identify” with them.<\/p>\n

The League of United Latin American Citizens sued the Amarillo school district in 1998 to create a single-member voting plan for the school system. LULAC and the school district then agreed on a cumulative voting compromise plan that later was adopted by Amarillo College’s Board of Regents.<\/p>\n

Well, perhaps we can put that “minorities can’t win in Amarillo” rationale to bed.<\/p>\n

Demerson scored a solid victory. The voting turnout still was pitiful. None of the City Council winners can claim an absolute majority supports their election. What they all got was a majority of a slim minority<\/em> of voters’ support.<\/p>\n

It’s true as well that Demerson had been elected already to a countywide office when he became Potter County judge in 1987. So, he’s no stranger to bucking stiff electoral odds.<\/p>\n

He’s just blazed a new trail along Amarillo’s political path.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Say whatever you want about the tone, tenor and tenacity of the campaign between City Councilman-elect Elisha Demerson and the incumbent he defeated today, Ellen Robertson Green. Demerson’s victory is historic in that an African-American has been elected to a citywide public office. The city’s at-large voting plan has been a point of contention among … Continue reading Demerson scores historic win<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[214,290,295,1209,1556,1563,3084,3086,4279],"class_list":["post-9252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-aisd","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-amarillo-college","tag-cumulative-voting","tag-elisha-demerson","tag-ellen-robertson-green","tag-minority-candidates","tag-minority-voters","tag-single-member-districts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}