City Government
Lucius F.C. Garvin
[Reprinted from Twentieth Century Magazine,
Vol. IV, No.19, April 1911]
I am not sure that the commission form of government is superior to
that which is outlined in the Federal Constitution.
What are the essential features of the United States Government?
- Government by the people.
- A written Constitution-the people's law
- A single executive head
- A judiciary appointed by the executive and confirmed by the
legislative department
- A multiple legislature enacting statute law and with power to
impeach executives and judges
The trend of reform has been and now seems to be to change some of
the above essentials, but is it not enough to alter such details as
have been found to work badly, leaving the fine essentials intact? Are
elective judges and plural executives, such as are found in the
commission form of city government, really an improvement?
The election of judges by the people is the remedy usually advanced
for the tyranny of our courts.
I attribute the unsatisfactory court decisions to our unchanged and
almost unchangeable Constitution, rather than to the method of
selecting the judges. The United States Constitution bears a similar
relation to the people of the United States that a boy's suit of
clothes does to the same lad become a man. It doesn't fit. More than a
century of growth has made imperative alterations in the organic law
of the nation which fitted young America fairly well. Apparently the
Supreme Court, seeing the necessity of making changes and knowing the
impossibility of amendment by the prescribed method, has by its
rulings modified the provisions of our written Constitution as it
deemed advisable. Whether the justices would have altered the meaning
of the Constitution more satisfactorily had they been elective rather
than appointive, no one can tell.
As a matter of fact, the Court should not have felt called upon to
adapt the nation's organic law to new circumstances. The so-called
people's law should be within the control of the people, so that it
nay grow naturally to meet the demands of the times. Then the duty
devolving upon the Supreme Court will be to interpret the wishes of
the people as expressed from time to time in the amendments added.
Under these circumstances, the court of final resort is not likely to
go far afield, and, if it does, may be reached by impeachment or by
means of more explicit amendment.
The remedy, therefore, for defects in the courts is the application
of the popular initiative and referendum to constitutional amendment.
The commission form of government departs from the Federal plan in
two respects. Instead of a single executive head, it provides for a
number, usually five, and it unites legislative and executive duties
in the hands of the same officials.
The practical question is whether the responsible head of a city
government is to be one individual or several.
Let us accept as practically sound the conclusion that executive
duties in a city may be subdivided to advantage into five separate
departments. Is it better that the heads of those departments should
be elected by the people or be appointed by the mayor? Unquestionably
the head of each of these departments should be a single individual
who can be held responsible for the character and action of his
subordinates, and not a plural committee or a commission which divides
the power and diffuses responsibility.
The advantages of having the heads of the departments, whose duties
are specified by law, appointive rather than elective are as follows:
It is easier for the people to select and elect one capable man than
five. By electing the mayor, the responsibility for carrying on the
city's business devolves upon one individual, chosen from two or more
candidates. In selecting his subordinates, the four or five heads of
departments, he has the whole city from which to seek persons
qualified for the particular work to be done in each department. This
is the way private business is conducted. No manufacturing corporation
would think of having the overseers in the several departments of its
mill without a superior, a superintendent, to whom all of them were
subordinate and responsible. Without such a head there would be
continual clashing between the departments, a lack of cooperation
which would inevitably produce imperfect and unsatisfactory results.
It is true that in the commission form of city government the five
heads of departments constitute a legislative body possessing the
power to pass ordinances, which may include general rules for the
conduct of the several departments. But in case any chief chooses not
to abide by such general rule, what can the other members of the city
council do about it? They cannot discharge the disobedient member,
since he can only be reached by popular vote.
So far as the legislative department of city government is concerned,
the needed departure from the Federal plan consists in the
substitution of one chamber for two and in making that single chamber
really representative of the people.
Since the framing of the United States Constitution a system of
electing legislative bodies has been invented which enables any
constituency to elect a perfectly representative body. I refer, of
course, to the plan of proportional representation devised by Sir
Thomas Hare. As applied to city government in the simplest form, the
law would provide for the election of the five or more members of the
city council upon a general ticket for the entire city, each elector
being restricted at the polls to a single vote for one candidate. As a
result of such a law, the five (or more) leading civic opinions of the
voters of the city would be successful at every election, and
consequently the city legislature would exactly represent the views of
their constituents.
The members of this body, accurately reflecting and ably voicing
public sentiment, would enact ordinances and make appropriations for
the several executive departments. So constituted, it could be
depended upon to act wisely and to aid each executive department in
its efforts to serve faithfully the interests of the citizens.
An outline of a city government in accordance with the Federal plan
may be given as follows:
- A city constitution, the charter, framed and subject to change
through the initiative and referendum.
- A mayor, given by the charter executive functions, to wit:
power to appoint the heads of departments with consent of the city
council, and to remove them at will.
- Heads of departments possessing, as provided in the charter,
complete control of subordinates and full authority to act.
- A single legislative chamber, the city council, whose duties
are defined carefully in the charter.
- Annual elections by universal adult suffrage, using the single
vote plan of proportional representation and the alternative vote
for mavor.
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