The SacRT board voted to support legislation in this session, AB1196 by Ken Cooley. The legislation would change the Public Utilities Code which applies to SacRT from requiring a weighted voting to allow SacRT to set its own voting methodology. It passed unanimously. The text of the legislation is short and simple:
102105.2. (a) Notwithstanding Section 102105.1, the board may adopt its own voting procedures by ordinance or resolution.
(b) The board, in acting on any item, shall continue to use the weighted voting procedure described in Section 102105.1, until the board adopts a different voting procedure.
(c) If the board adopts a different voting procedure pursuant to subdivision (a), the board shall post the new voting procedure on the district’s internet website.
SacRT stated in the agenda item that it would implement a one member, one vote method rather than weighted voting if the legislation passes. The implication was that they had already made the decision on what voting structure they wanted. The next post here will address that concern, but for now, some background information.
You might be forgiven for associating the phrase “one member, one vote” with “one person, one vote”, a core though only aspirational foundation of our system of government. But they are not equivalent. In the case of “one member, one vote”, it means that the entity represented by that member gets one vote, no matter the number of people they represent.
The table below shows the distribution of the eleven board members among the member agencies. Please note that the percentage for the Sacramento County members assumes that they are representing the unincorporated areas of the county, but this is not correct. Members of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in fact represent all citizens equally, regardless of whether they live in a city or in unincorporated county. So this number is provided as information, not as explaining the distribution of representation.
| Agency | Number | Members | Population (2019) | Percentage |
| Citrus Heights | 1 | Steve Miller | 87,796 | 5.7% |
| Elk Grove | 1 | Pat Hume | 174,775 | 11.3% |
| Folsom | 1 | Kerri Howell | 81,328 | 5.2% |
| Rancho Cordova | 1 | Linda Budge | 75,087 | 4.8% |
| Sacramento | 4 | Jeff Harris, Rick Jennings,Jay Schenirer, Katie Valenzuela | 513,624 | 8.3% |
| Sacramento County (unincorporated) | 3 | Patrick Kennedy, Don Nottoli, Phil Serna | 932,610 | 13.3% |
| Sacramento County (total) | 1,552,058 |
The higher the percentage of the county population, the lower the representation for individual citizens. So Elk Grove, which will soon be annexed into SacRT (the SacRT motion carried, now the city just needs to confirm the negotiated agreement), would have less representation than their citizens deserve, only one vote for a higher population.
A pure “one member, one vote” method would perpetuate these inequalities.
Sacramento Transit Advocates and Riders (STAR) 
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