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A Reorganization of City Government
Submitted by Dan U-A on Wed, 12/10/2008 - 10:09am.
What I'm talking about is looking at a complete restructuring and reform of our entire city government
Remember when you were likely to hear Mike Nutter say things like the quote above? Those were the da... oh.
That actually was the mayor, yesterday:
Now, as the budget crisis grows worse, Nutter is considering more jobs cuts. But this time he's targeting elected officials.
Nutter says that he's looking at eliminating or consolidating the city's "row offices" - which include the Sheriff, Clerk of Quarter Sessions and others. To do so, he would need City Council to approve legislation for a ballot measure to change the city's Home Rule Charter. Voters would then have to decide.
"We're looking at everything that is independent and not within the direct jurisdiction of the executive branch of the government," Nutter said when asked which offices he was reviewing. "This has nothing to do with the leadership or the individuals in those capacities. I'm not picking on them."
The mayor has still not announced that he will reconsider any cuts he has planned, has not announced he will look at revenue solutions, or anything like that. But, this- actually looking at all of Philadelphia government- is a good step.
It makes no sense that we are laying off librarians while we don't even consider what is going on in offices run by elected officials that no one has ever heard of. If, as a some people seem to indicate, an office like the Register of Wills is doing a good job, fine, let's see it. It doesn't mean though that it makes sense for them to be an independent office that no one has ever heard of.
I am interested to hear the details of this. But, in my opinion, we should not elect more than the Mayor, City Council, a Controller, and a DA.
So, it is a good first step. One other quibble I have with the Mayor: I have an op-ed in the Daily News today, and due to the Mayor's failure to call me to update me on his plans, a piece of it now seems out of date. Come on Mike, did I put you in my Fave 5 plan for nothing?
Even for me, this had an
Even for me, this had an incredible amount of typos. Sorry.
Centralization Of Power Is Of Questionable Value
The Mayor of Philadelphia already has enough power to intimidate the City Council into not aggressively opposing his extremely unpopular agenda to shut down 11 branch libraries and greatly reduce the number of fire engines and swimming pools. He has enough power to marginalize alternative solutions put forth by many concerned citizens.
Independently elected officials are a check on the power of the mayor. It helped greatly that Judge John Herron, the elected judge who decided to preserve Burholme Park despite the views of the Street and Nutter Administrations in support of a Fox Chase Cancer Center land grab, was an independently elected public official and not just one of many mayoral appointees.
Even when independently elected officials do not engage the mayor over his city policies, they limit mayoral power by limiting the number of functions the mayor performs. When we achieve that glorious day when all city functions are under the control of the mayor, it is hard to imagine how that will not stifle dissent even much more than dissent from the most unwise and unpopular policies is stifled now.
In the battle with the city commissioner's office over access to election returns, the mayor's team showed they could exercise intelligent judgment against the policies of someone who was not part of their team. But they have not shown that ability to overrule teammates like the head of the library system.
The existence of elections is what makes public opinion relevant. The fewer the offices to be elected, the less relevance the public has.
Checks and Balances Exist for a Reason
I am going to have to agree with RepMark. The centralization of power like that, in any context, is scary and dangerous. Fewer offices equals fewer variations in opinion and points of view, which nothing good can come from at all. Instead of little accountability, there will no accountability.
And what point of view or
And what point of view or check and balance would you say you have heard from the Clerk of Quarter Sessions?
How about the City Commissioners? They checked the ability of a lot of people to vote when they didn't send them ballots. I suppose that could be an argument.
This isn't something I've thought a ton about
But to break it down a bit for people considering the Mayor's proposal (which has long been Dan's)--
I think that the logic is that when you have an elected office that voters don't understand, and don't know the candidates, people get into those offices by virtue of money and relationships with the City Committee and don't actually have accountability with the voters (because the voters don't know who they are or what they do, and the office-holders know that popular opinion isn't what got them elected in the first place).
It's a little bit like the arguments against an elected judiciary: in most cases, voters don't know the judicial candidates, and judicial candidates owe winning their seat on the bench to money, connections, and ballot position.
So--back to row offices--in an imperfect democracy, you get more accountability by bringing these offices into the executive because there's a clear power structure and someone making sure the offices are doing what they are supposed to. Now, the fact of independent elected status means there's effectively no oversight and very little leverage to force changes in how the offices do business. Which has demonstrably been a clear problem in some, if not all, of these offices.
I'm mostly thinking out loud here.
The Clerk of Quarter
The Clerk of Quarter Sessions and Register of Wills are a part of the judiciary. Placing them under the executive is a violation of the principle of separations of powers.
It would mean that, in the case of the CQS, that criminal court filings and paper work are now in the hands of the mayor. In the case of the ROW, that probate issues are now in the hands of the mayor. What is the check against mayor suspending work and, essentially, bringing criminal court and portions of orphans' court to a stand-still? Nothing if the CQS and ROW are consilidated into the executive.
We design our government to avoid such pitfalls.
Also, the argument that voters don't know what they are or do has no place in this discussion for three reasons. First, when we design our goverment we don't make the assumption that voters cannot grasp he functions of elected office. Ask voters what the mayor or city council does, and I will guarantee you 90% of the electorate doesn't know. Does that mean we should make Philadelphia's government a technocracy? No. It means we should better educate our voters.
Second, the argument assumes that Philadelphia voters will actually read and understand the ballot question. Overwhelmingly ballot initiatives in Philadelphia are given a "yes" vote. Placing this on the ballot doesn't mean there will be a reasoned debate. It means it will pass. Doesn't that go against the notion that voters just don't know.
Last, the row offices are a part of our tradition of local government. A power grab disguised as a budgetary necessity does not stand up to the level of scrutiny I give fundamental changes to the way we govern ourselves.
I'm all for efficienies, but I'm not willing to see judicial functions go into the hands of the mayor's office. I'm also not crazy about the idea of a sitting mayor having control over the voting process. We can critique the City Commissioners a lot. However, the alternative, making them an office of the mayor, does not seem to pass my smell test at this time.
An alternative to Mayoral appointment?
One of the things Gaetano has long taken seriously here is the separation of powers. And I long agreed with him.
So I do think he raises an important issue.
However, it strikes me that if these offices are fundamentall judicial offices then there is an alternative to Mayoral appointment of them. They can be appointed by a judge, say by the president judge of the Court of Common Pleas. I suspect that something along those lines what is done in most courts in most states in the country.
Having judges appoint positions in the judiciary would not only answer the separation of powers but also answer the objections that could be raised to giving an Mayor who arguably already has too much authority vis a vis council additional sources of power.
All of these job are essentially patronage jobs--though there is no reason that civil services rules couldn't be brought into being for jobs under the heads of each of these departments. We need to be thinking about the consequences for city government of giving different groups of people control over certain patronage positions.
The only real downside to doing away with the election of the clerk of quarter sessions is that we lose a perennial political joke in this city, about the incumbent doing such a good job that she is going to be promoted to clerk of half sessions. It's not much of a joke, but you should here Jonathan Saidel tell it at least once before we carry out this reform.
Marc, you raise an
Marc, you raise an interesting alternative. I wonder, and this is not to question the intentions of Mayor Nutter, but when we have these political stucture discussions, I think we have to make the same assumption the founders did that people will work to maximize their power.
Does your alternative meet Nutter's goal of establishing "budgetary" control over these departments?
If not, would he really be consider your option?
How are these positions funded now?
Judges from time to time have tried to take on take on the power of appropriating money. But typically judges and judicial offices are paid according to a schedule set by ordinance or law. Isn't that true for the CQS and Registrar of Wills? So doesn't the Mayor and council have some power of them? I do recall Lynn Abraham complaining that Street was underfunding the DAs office, so clearly there is some control.
Maybe the difference is that the Mayor's unilateral power not to spend money doesn't apply to the CQS or the courts and he only plays a role in the normal budgetary process.
Yes, they are generally
Civil service exists for these reasons.
Also, the argument that
It seems weird to me that you are saying that the notion that no one knows what they do doesn't bother you, but then you have a problem with a charter change because people won't know what it really means, and will just vote yes. (And, I don't think it will actually be very easy to pass. Much of the machine will be lined up to try and stop it.)
As for tradition, yes, it is a tradition. The row offices still exist because in the deal they cut to move Philadelphia into the 20th century, Joe Clark and Richardson Dilworth let the party "have them." The reality is, as you and everyone else knows, they do not exist as a check whatsoever, but as a nice job for the party to give out. A party position will not tend to act as a check on that party. It is about the power of the machine over the efficiency or function of government. In 2008, I don't think we can make that choice.
One thing that neither Mayor
One thing that neither Mayor Nutter nor you can provide us with is: what is the cost savings? What is the efficiency?
Just because it is different, doesn't mean it's reform. Just because there will be a new boss, doesn't mean the program is more efficient.
Before you go about changing the struture of goverment, there needs to be a plan, an argument, a debate. If recent history is any indication (the "library plan"), Mayor Nutter doesn't care for debate on his initiatives.
Also, my argument is that, if we take what Philadelphia voters know as a benchmark of how we design our government, then we'd be left with a mayor and a few constituent service managers, maybe.
As for a ballot initiative, they always pass and are not an true gauge of what is right/wrong and what is good/bad. It is a gauge of how many people can vote "yes."
But, more fundamentally, you ignore the separation of powers issue. Do you think because Philadelphia voters might not grasp that we should be rid of the notion too? If that's the case, perhaps we can just disband city council and let Mayor Nutter do whatever he wants.
1) Charter changes don't
1) Charter changes don't always pass. Ask Big Ed.
2) Yes, I agree there needs to be a real plan first. That doesn't mean that the underlying idea isn't good.
2) Yes, I agree there needs
Except for the whole executive doing judicial functions thing. :)
Athena's Directive
It would be fairly easy for citizens to organize and simply create an alternative government and make Mayor and City Council obsolete. It would take a few years to get the hang of it, but it could be fun.
Athenians created a democracy in which all branches of government fall under the power of the assembly of the free citizens of Athens. Today, by law, we would consider all citizens free.
The members of the Council and Senate are chosen by lot from among all free citizens, so as not to allow any one person undue influence, and all decisions of state are decided by this assembly.
“demokratia” is made up of two words demos (the people) and kratos (power).
The function of democracy, in addition to the administration of Athens, is to limit the power of any one group, or individual. Nutter wants to consolidate power even more!
An example of how this would work is a 500 strong council of groups of 50 citizens, chosen by lot. Each is selected to hold office for one year. A citizen can only serve twice in a lifetime.
The main duty is to oversee the work of the civil servants, like make sure Air Management or the Police are doing their job and responding to the needs of the citizens. The Council is Accountable to the citizens instead of a few city council people who don’t care at all about people and have proven for decades that they can't run a city.
In this ancient time , each group of 50 takes turns to hold office for 36 days and at least four public assemblies are held, about every nine days. At these assemblies, any citizen may speak and votes are taken by show of hands.
A system based on Restorative Justice principals (look it up) would also work better than the fake courts they have now that are only for the rich and the criminals and run by inbred lawyers.
What we have now is NO PROTECTION OF LAW and NO VOICE for citizens. The Philadelphia system is constantly failing because the same people are at the helm. Officials who only speak to the citizen when its voting time and act like the people don’t exist the rest of the time.
I don’t exist as a citizen. Council Woman Donna Reed Miller and East Mt Airy Neighbors speak for me and they said I wanted toxic dirt dug up around my house. The 14th district police said people weren’t breaking into my house and stealing even though now they are in jail and the police said my car wasn’t stolen, even though I had to pay money to get it out of stolen car jail. Air Management said there wasn’t any dust even though we were all choking on it. The city wrecked my house and poisoned me and it’s okay because the City doesn’t believe I exist as a citizen.
Why do we need the mayor to have libraries? Just get your kids and neighbors and go to the library and take it over and read to your kids. Oh yeah, then the police will come with their guns and aim them at you and your kids because you're reading stories. Oh yeah, citizens don't have any rights. Libraries are "government" property.
Well guess what? Who paid for those buildings? The citizens. Who is the government? The citizens.
Just go take the libraries. Go take City Hall. Circle up and take it. It's yours.
City Hall took my house and my health and safety. As stated in the "Declaration of Independence”
“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”