pols lecture 30

• Important things with direct, measurable effects on quality of life

  • Policing
  • Property
  • Noise
  • Sewage treatment
  • Zoning
  • Local taxes
  • Schools
  • City roads
• Local Politics/Elections

  Voter turnout is low, especially in off-years

  Disproportionate influence of seniors & middle-class voters

  Economically prosperous persons with more "at stake"
• Nonpartisanship in Local Elections

  80% of U.S. local gov'ts have non-partisan elections, including TX municipal gov'ts
• Nonpartisanship in local elections

  
  

  Greater importance of "neighborhood politics"

  greater importance of image

  voters lack key electoral cue
• What matter in local elections

  • Group identities & interests > partisan identification
  • More heterogeneous candidates than state & national races
  • Who gets what > ideological debates
  • Which groups & neighborhoods with benefit?
  • Issues are more personal
  • Moral & fiscal issues can have big impact on turnout
  • Less media coverage, especially of non-mayoral races
• Two Types of Local "Legislative" Seats

  • Single-member districts (i.e. ward, precinct)
  • At-large seats
• Single-member districts


  • City is divided into geographic districts whose residents elect one member to represent them on the council
  • Better represents diversity that presents geographically
  • Important for minority representation due to housing patterns
• At-large seats


  • Voted on by all city residents w/o regard to geographic area or neighborhood
  • In theory, these members are expected to be non-partisan, take broad view of the city & its problems
• "At large" representatives may not seek to represent everyone in the city but only those who voted for him/her
• Who votes in city elections? Older, white, economically prosperous men & women! Those with more at stake.
• Efforts to convert single-place seats to "at large" seats may be a thinly-veiled effort to provide less representation to minorities & poorer sections of a city
• When are local elections held?

  • Same time as state & federal elections
  • Independent of state & national elections
• 60% of U.S. cities have separate elections which separates local issues from national questions
• Seperate elections

  Mean added cost & significantly lower turnout
• Turnout is even less representative of the local electorate
• What drives low local turnout?

  • Separate city elections
  • Small or middle-sized cities
  • Middle-class, homogenous cities
  • No 'hot' referendum issue
  • Council-manager form of gov't
  • Non-partisan electoral system
• Machine politics


  • Post-Civil War, growing cities had disorganized gov't, few reliable services
  • Political machines centralized power to "get things done"
  • Machines used tangible benefits & material rewards to maintain power
  • Friendships, patronage, favors, jobs, social services > ideologies & issues
  • Catered to the urban masses, esp. the poor & recent immigrants
• Reforming City Politics


  • Progressive reformers wanted to combat civic corruption & break the grip of the machines
  • Believed in a public interest, not balancing
  • Saw municipal gov't as an administrative problem, NOT a political problem
  • Often led by the displaced power-holders of the old Yankee elite
• Electoral reforms:

  Separate state & national elections

  Non-partisanship

  At-large districts
• The Decline of the Machines

  • Loss of constituents with assimilation of white ethnic groups
  • Growth of federal social welfare programs
  • Social mobility & growing prosperity
  • With it, the spread of middle class values
  • Structural & electoral reforms weakening party machines
  • General decline of party & rise of candidate-centered politics
• Challenges of Local Parties Today

  • Old Machine politics:
  • Strong, disciplined parties
  • Reform took away many traditional resources used to unite & manage a diverse urban coalition
• Parties in U.S. Cities

  • Roosevelt's "New Deal" Electoral Coalition: Early 1930s – late 1960s
  • This coalition included many urban groups: Working class
  • Ethnic, racial, & religious minorities
  • (& white Southerners)
  • Through the success of this coalition, Democrats dominate city politics
• Splits among Urban Democrats
• Democratic coalition is a "big tent"

  • One major split among urban Democrats: Working class Catholic, white ethnic Democrats
  • Upper-class, white liberal protestants, Jews, + blacks & Hispanics
• Decline of party machines has led to growing intraparty conflict w/in Democratic coalition
• Political opportunities for urban Republicans created by:

  Persistent big city problems

  Perceived Democratic ownership of said problems
• • Structural reforms:
  • Separating politics from administration (e.g. advent of the council-manager form)
  • Replacing patronage with civil service
  • Reorganization of local offices ("short ballot" movement)
• Themes of "city Republicans":

  • Tough on crime
  • Cutting city bureaucracy
  • Lower taxes & simulating city economy
• • Post-2016 political realignment on urban-v-rural issues
  • GOP has generally become less competitive in cities (& suburbs)
  • Contemporary GOP becoming a more populist "land & labor" party: Rural voters + blue-collar, working-class voters
• Tools to control loyalty of members & voters, e.g:

  • Access to offices
  • Patronage
  • Control over contracts