Perhaps no local race or issue has generated as much discussion and confusion among Knoxville voters this fall as the city’s proposed Amendment No. 2, which would change the way City Council district seats are elected.

Both agree there is still some confusion among voters about what the amendment means.

Council is currently made up of six district representatives and three at-large members. As we detailed in our exploration of the issue a few weeks ago, if the amendment passes, all nine seats would become at-large seats elected citywide. Six of them would retain a residency requirement that the officeholder live in a specified “region,” analogous to the current districts, but voting for all seats would be citywide in both the primaries and general elections.

If the referendum fails, the Council district seats would revert to normal district representation, meaning they would be elected only by voters who live in each district. 

The issue has divided opinion across the city, making strange bedfellows out of opponents from both the left and right who fear the amendment would dilute minority voices and representation. Supporters argue that it would preserve a system close to the one Knoxville has had since 1969, which had district-only voting in district primaries but citywide voting in general elections. (The old system is no longer viable because of a change in state law.)

To help bring further clarity to the issue, Compass invited prominent figures both in favor of and opposed to the amendment to appear on our Compass Points podcast this week. Rev. Sam Brown, a well-known East Knoxville pastor and president of the Knoxville branch of the NAACP, spoke in favor. (Although he noted he was speaking only for himself, not the organization.) State Rep. Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville, spoke against. The two are usually political allies, and the dialogue was respectful but pointed in its disagreements.

You can listen to the entire conversation here, but here are some excerpts.

On why they support or oppose the amendment:

Brown: I am in favor of the amendment, because just through my personal experience as a citizen, (the former system) has yielded … greater results from our city legislature and our city government, with having the entire body accountable to our residents here in the community that I serve and represent. I can give you contrasting examples of how my community has been underserved by County Commission, by the school board, because we only have one person who really cares of our experience, who is really accountable to us. … When we think about the past at least three election cycles in our city elections, we have seen that the system that we have elected people under for the past 50 years has yielded us the greatest diversity we've seen on City Council in the entire history of our city.

McKenzie: This came as a result of a horrible piece of legislation that (state Rep.) Elaine Davis put forward … It’s a bad piece of legislation. However, the biggest caveat is, this fix is worse than the poison pill that Representative Davis put forward. This fix will effectively centralize the power to the privileged few, and those privileged few reside in the richer parts of North Knoxville and in West Knoxville. If you look at the past five elections, they've decided it. Now, every district is equally represented, but not in voting power, not in voting strength. So we're trying, we're trying to get the vote out (in East Knoxville). That’s what we’re doing now.

But the reality of it is, (voters in other districts) are going to be the ones deciding the vote. …  It's going to dilute the voting strength of African-Americans in this city, it's going to dilute the voting strength of Hispanic-Americans.

On whether an all at-large system will create obstacles for candidates who have to run citywide:

Brown: I think that that is a very real concern, and I think that that could create possible barriers for persons who are not connected with certain people who can fund them or donate to them heavily for the race. …  But I will also add to that, think about the pathways that going to district-only could create. One of the incentives that we have for having an at-large system is that there's really no attempt at gerrymandering, and having a culture where the elected officials choose their voters. Because everybody has to vote citywide anyway. If we go to district-only, yeah, it may alleviate some barriers and lower some thresholds for fundraisers and earning votes. But I think it could create pathways for special interest groups to also be able to pour money into district elections. We’ve seen the attempt at that in the past few election cycles.

McKenzie: What's going to happen if we go to this, look at the numbers, numbers generally don’t lie. What's going to happen is the money coming in (to at-large races) is going to come in from special interest groups. … If it's a developer, if it's someone that wants to bring in a dangerous kind of plant into East Knoxville, they can pour money into these races, into those two districts, and move the needle. They can put their foot on the scale. This is a dangerous, dangerous thing that we’re looking at. I can’t emphasize that enough. I see how money corrupts votes at the statewide level.

On whether voters have had the opportunity to understand the issue:

Brown: Some people I’ve spoken with are still a little confused, they’re still seeking out the information. It’s just a lot to digest. But I will say that it is a great thing that you have so many community groups, several of our City Council people have been having town hall meetings. … I think that this is something where persons are just really going to have to go in and just vote their heart’s conscience.

McKenzie: There absolutely is a level of confusion. I really hate the way that charter Amendment 2 was written, it’s extremely convoluted. They changed “districts” to “regions,” all of that had nothing to do, it’s not really germane to what this is. I love simple language that says, “We’re going from district-wide to all at-large,” if they said that they probably knew it wouldn’t pass. But they put in all this confusing language.