SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
BROWNSVILLE, TX — In what city officials are calling “a bold exercise in participatory democracy,” Brownsville has handed every registered voter a 15-question take-home exam on the city charter and cheerfully admitted that no one, including the people who wrote it, can explain what the answers mean.
Early voting begins Monday, giving residents roughly one week to decode propositions covering ethics rules, an ethics board, campaign finance limits, automatic resignations for missed meetings, a pay raise that only exists in the future, and the deletion of language so archaic it was reportedly written by someone who also owned a horse.
“We really want voters to read the propositions before they vote,” said a city spokesperson, staring directly into the middle distance. “We just want to be clear that reading them will not help.”
At a town hall Thursday, officials walked residents through the ballot language, which legal scholars describe as “technically English.” A follow-up session is scheduled for Oct. 26 at the Brownsville Events Center, where a facilitator will read the amendments aloud in a soothing voice while attendees guess whether Proposition 9 creates an ethics board or dissolves the concept of Tuesday.
“This is an open-book exam,” explained one commissioner. “The book is the charter. It was written in 1915. The ‘book’ part is that we are the ones who are open to suggestions about what any of it says.”
Voters expressed enthusiasm about the format. “I love that I get to grade my own government’s homework without ever seeing the answer key,” said one resident, bubbling in what he believes is either campaign finance reform or permission for the mayor to own a second hat.
City officials stressed that the pay raise portion — mayor to $62,500, commissioners to $50,000 — applies only to future officeholders, meaning current elected leaders are voting on compensation for a mysterious, better-paid generation to come. “It’s not for us,” they emphasized, in a tone witnesses described as “extremely for us adjacent.”
“The beauty of 15 amendments is statistical,” said a local civics professor. “If you can’t understand any of them, you’re still going to get a few right by accident. That’s not a bug. That’s Brownsville’s chartered form of government.”
At press time, the city had announced a third town hall, titled “Which Bubble Is the Ethics Board?: A Guided Meditation,” which will be held entirely in the original 1915 charter language, untranslated, by candlelight.
