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Municipal Reform Movement
• A continuum– Some cities adopted one or two reforms
– A “reform City” has most / all reforms in charter
– Western, smaller, suburban, newer = more reforms
Reform Movement
• What effect on politics today?
• Institutions are different at national, state & local level due to early 1900s reform era
Reform Movement
• What effect on politics today?• Federal– Income tax, direct election of Senate
• State– Direct democracy, primaries, civil service
• Local– Reform city charters, most smaller places
“Council-Manager” form
Reform Movement
• What effect on politics today?• Local– Increased ‘red tape’ (Bureaucracy)– Lower participation– Lower public spending (?)– Cities ‘less political’• Is that less democratic?
Reform movement
• A defense of patronage– Can a big city mayor govern w/o the power to hire
and fire people?• CEO model
– How many staff does elected exec need?
– At what level?
Reform movement
• Today:– Many big city mayors looking for stronger powers
– Many (large) cities have changed to councils elected by districts• Seattle just changed to districts• Detroit the last big city still AL
Post reform institutions
• Forms of government– Council-manager– Mayor-council– Commission– Town meeting
– Most places have no mayor, non-partisan, with off year, at-large elections
Council-Manager
• City council sets policy, budget• Council hires city manager to do exec
functions– day-to-day administration
• Mayor is figure-head (one of council)
Council-Manager
• Most common form of city government
• Increasing– Of cities over 10K: 48% in 1996 to 55% in 2006
– More common in south east, west coast• Phoenix, San Jose, Dallas, Las Vegas• Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Austin, Ft Worth, El Paso
Strong Mayor-Council
• Mayor elected, full-time pay• Mayor has most administrative and budget
power• Strong mayor may veto council; mayor appoints
dept head
• 2nd most common form, 34% of cities– Older, larger; east coast, midwest– NY, Chicago, LA, Philly, Houston, SF, Seattle
Commission
• Small governing body w/ no executive• Commission has legislative and exec powers• Each commissioner responsible for one policy
area– Fire, roads, public healt
• Rare, lt 1% of cities:– Portland OR (but has a mayor)
Mayor vs. no mayor
• How much of city admin. should be controlled by someone elected by voters?
• How much power does that (elected) exec need?
• Big city vs. small place
At-large elections
• less parochial• less log-rolling, vote
trading• larger candidate pool• better qualified
candidates
• Elections cost more• Less racial/ethnic
minority representation
• 2/3 of all municipalities use at-large representation
District elections
• Geographic representation
• Council reflects very local concerns
• People may know councilmember
• Less cost to run
• Safe seats• Less interest in city-
wide interests
District vs At-large, 2010
25K-70K 70K-200K +200KAt large 49% 44% 16%Mixed 25% 25% 38%District 26% 31% 46%
Only 14% of all municipalities use district elections (there are lots of small places
Non partisan elections
• Cons– no labels = voter
confusion– voters cue of name-ID,
ethnicity– business ‘slating groups’
fill void– upper-class bias– low turnout
• Pros– No partisan way to
distribute services– elected officials
cooperate better if non-partisan
Non partisan elections
• 77% of cities have non-partisan elections
• Big cities that are non-partisan– LA, Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas, SD, SJ, Seattle,
Austin, Ft Worth
• Big cities that are partisan:– NY, Chicago, Houston, Philly, SF, Indy, Baltimore,
Wash DC
Consequences of Reforms
• Less corruption, more efficiency• Weaker political parties• Less participation• Less minority representation
• Cities as corporations, not polity