St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Advocates of St. Louis redistricting commission will go ahead with petition drive”

“A committee aiming to shift ward redistricting from aldermen to an independent commission announced Monday it will go ahead with a petition drive to try to qualify their proposal for a special election next November.

The Reform St. Louis Coalition said it reached its goal of raising $100,000 via crowdfunding and recruiting 200 volunteers by Sunday. The group will begin seeking signatures of registered voters outside polling places at Tuesday’s city primary.

Under a revised version of the group’s proposed city charter amendment, redrawing ward boundary lines would be assigned to a nine-member commission required to hold public hearings and follow various guidelines.

The new version also seeks to make it more difficult for the Board of Aldermen to make changes in the city’s new nonpartisan ‘approval voting’ system enacted by voters as Proposition D last November.

The Reform St. Louis proposal also would:

• Require aldermen with a conflict of interest on legislation to refrain from voting instead of simply disclosing a conflict.

• Require aldermanic financial disclosure statements to be accessible online.

• Change the name of the city legislative body to the Board of Alderpersons. Women now make up a majority of the board.

• Prohibit former aldermen and aldermanic employees from lobbying the board for a year after their departure from the board.”

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