Local Government – Page 61

The Urban Archipelago

In the wake of the 2004 election, the editors of The Stranger, an alternative newspaper published in Seattle, wrote a wonderful rant about what they titled “the urban archipelago.” Looking at the red and blue of the election map, they saw that cities were blue dots in even the reddest states, and explained that division by a vast difference in urban versus rural values.

The most recent issue of The Atlantic confirms the nature of America’s divide: it is between cities and “what remains of the countryside.” The article states what is becoming increasingly obvious: “virtually every major city (100,000 plus) in the United States of America has a different outlook from the less populous areas that are closest to it. The difference is no longer where people live, it is how people live.”

This really isn’t news, although it is an important and under appreciated feature of American life. When I was in City Hall back in the 1970s, Indianapolis routinely faced the resentment of rural Hoosiers, a resentment reflected in the legislative priorities of those who represented them. That animus continues–we can’t get genuine home rule, or even legislative permission to decide for ourselves whether we will pay an extra tax in order to provide our residents with decent mass transit.

As Gail Collins noted in a column a few months ago, people living in urban areas understand the need for government–paved roads and public safety and garbage collection and all those other services that are necessary when people live in close quarters. That farmer out at the end of the gravel road, who rarely even gets a visitor and isn’t worth the effort of the burglar, doesn’t see much reason to pay taxes.

It goes deeper than just the need for public services, however. Living with other people shapes a certain worldview. It creates an identifiably urban value structure. As the authors of the Urban Archipeligo wrote in that seminal essay,

Look around you, urbanite, at the multiplicity of cultures, ethnicities, and tribes that are smashed together in every urban center (yes, even Seattle): We’re for that. We’re for pluralism of thought, race, and identity. We’re for a freedom of religion that includes the freedom from religion–not as some crazy aberration, but as an equally valid approach to life. We are for the right to choose one’s own sexual and recreational behavior, to control one’s own body and what one puts inside it. We are for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…..

Unlike the people who flee from cities in search of a life free from disagreement and dark skin, we are for contentiousness, discourse, and the heightened understanding of life that grows from having to accommodate opposing viewpoints. We’re for opposition. And just to be clear: The non-urban argument, the red state position, isn’t oppositional, it’s negational–they are in active denial of the existence of other places, other people, other ideas. It’s reactionary utopianism, and it is a clear and present danger; urbanists should be upfront and unapologetic about our contempt for their politics and their negational values. Republicans have succeeded in making the word “liberal”–which literally means “free from bigotry… favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded”–into an epithet. Urbanists should proclaim their liberalism from the highest rooftop (we have higher rooftops than they do); it’s the only way we survive….

Let’s see, what else are we for? How about education? Cities are beehives of intellectual energy; students and teachers are everywhere you look, studying, teaching, thinking. In Seattle, you can barely throw a rock without hitting a college. It’s time to start celebrating that, because if the reds have their way, advanced degrees will one day be awarded based on the number of Bible verses a person can recite from memory. In the city, people ask you what you’re reading. Outside the city, they ask you why you’re reading. You do the math–and you’ll have to, because non-urbanists can hardly even count their own children at this point. For too long now, we’ve caved to the non-urban wisdom that decries universities as bastions of elitism and snobbery. Guess what: That’s why we should embrace them. Outside of the city, elitism and snobbery are code words for literacy and complexity. And when the oil dries up, we’re not going to be turning to priests for answers–we’ll be calling the scientists. And speaking of science: SCIENCE! That’s another thing we’re for. And reason. And history.

The recent article in The Atlantic confirms this division of values, noting that in November, 37 states voted on 174 ballot measures, and that the rural states that cast (entirely symbolic) votes against Obamacare were the same states that ban same-sex marriage and any use of marijuana.

The problem is that in Indiana–and many other states–we don’t really have “one person one vote.” Rural areas are vastly overrepresented. Taxes paid by city dwellers go disproportionately to rural areas. And the people who populate the General Assembly have lots of incentive to keep things that way. This last election put the values of rural Indiana firmly in charge.

The next four years are going to be very painful for those of us who live in Indiana’s Urban Archipelago.

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Turnout and Citizenship

We had an interesting exchange in my Media and Policy class this past Thursday night. I team-teach that class with John Mutz, who–among his numerous other distinctions–served as Indiana’s Lt. Governor. Former Indiana Supreme Court Justice Ted Boehm and Common Cause policy director Julia Vaughn were guest speakers. So the discussion (about the impact of money in politics) was informed–and informative.

Julia noted that Indiana ranked next to last among the states in voter turnout, according to the recent Civic Health Index, and John challenged her statement that we should be embarrassed by that low level of participation, saying it didn’t bother him.

Should it bother us? This is one of those questions where the correct response is “it depends.”

If the folks who are blowing off the political process are low-information, low-interest voters, then I agree with John that it isn’t a problem. Why should the votes of the uninformed dilute the votes of those of us who take the process seriously? If you don’t know who you support and why, then you should stay home and let more thoughtful people participate.

On the other hand, if low turnout is due to one or more of the following reasons, we have a different problem and we need to do something about it.

We should be embarrassed if

We’ve made voting too difficult. If we’ve restricted the number of polling places, and/or limited the hours those polls are open so that voting is inconvenient for people with jobs and family obligations and actual lives, shame on us. Ditto if we’re requiring all sorts of documentation that older, poorer folks are unlikely to have.

We’ve made politics too nasty. If all voters hear are 30-second attacks on the integrity, brains and general humanity of those running for office, research suggests those voters tend to turn it all off and stay home on election day. (Some candidates will actually engage in nasty campaigning in order to evoke the “pox on both your houses” response and thus suppress turnout, if they think a larger turnout would benefit their opponent.)

We’ve made the ballot too daunting and complicated. Remind me again why we are voting for coroner, treasurer, recorder and dog-catcher? Who beside the candidates really cares who serves on township advisory boards?

We’ve failed to “connect the dots” between government policies and the reality of our daily lives, allowing voters to believe that candidates are all fungible. (Hurricane Sandy is just one example of why policies matter: if disaster relief had been turned back to state and local governments, does anyone really believe the result would have been the same for those who desperately needed help? Instead of throwing mud at each other, candidates need to make the case that their preferred policies matter, and how.)

We’ve constructed a system in which many votes really don’t matter. This is the most depressing reason of all, because it’s true. Yes, my vote for state and local offices still matters, more or less, but increasingly–thanks to gerrymandering and winner-take-all allocation of Electoral College votes–my votes for President and many other offices really don’t. (In this year’s Presidential election, those Hoosiers who vote for Obama might just as well flush those votes down the nearest toilet; Romney will win the state and take all of Indiana’s electoral college votes–even if the win is only by a point or two. A couple of states allocate their electoral votes to reflect the breakdown of the state’s popular vote–the constitution permits that–but Indiana and most others don’t.)

So–should we be embarrassed by our low turnout? Yes. If we institute changes that make voting more convenient, the ballot less daunting, the process less negative and/or fruitless and turnout is still low, then we can shrug it off and accuse the nonvoters among us of of poor citizenship. But not before.

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Ballard Catches Mourdock-itis

The generally-held impression of Mayor Greg Ballard has been that he’s a nice guy who’s just in over his head–way over in many respects. Lately, however, he’s been doing things to change that impression–he’s evidently learning fast how not to be a nice guy. Some of this newly-found petulance and partisanship has emerged since Ryan Vaughn–he of the parking meter fiasco–became Chief of Staff, but the buck–as Harry Truman used to say–stops at the Mayor’s own desk.

When the Democrats won control of the Council, new Council President Maggie Lewis was quick to reach out and invite co-operation. When Councilor Brian Mahern held up the Mayor’s TIF proposal, Democrats Vop Osili and Joe Simpson worked to end the impasse. Given the parties’ inevitable differences in priorities, these early signs of conciliation pointed to emergence of an occasionally tense but generally workable accommodation.

Then came the budget. As the Indianapolis Star reported

Facing a deadline to approve or veto the nearly $1.1 billion city/county budget for 2013, Ballard signed it. But his changes, without further negotiations and a quick agreement with the council, would withhold nearly $32 million in income-tax money from Marion County offices and agencies.

That money helps pay to run the courts, keep the jails open, run elections, prosecute or defend criminals, process crime scenes, investigate deaths and provide other public services such as surveying land and collecting property taxes.

The common denominator of the cuts: they affected only the agencies held by Democrats. The Mayor’s own operation, the city offices that he controls, weren’t cut.

The Mayor justified his use of the line-item veto to cripple Democratic offices with language about fiscal responsibility. But genuine fiscal responsibility would involve shared sacrifices across public agencies. (Sort of reminds me of a husband who tells his wife “we can’t afford that new coat you need because my cable TV bill has to be paid.”) He also voiced disagreement with a proposed assessment of the CIB. If he had a genuine problem with that assessment, however, he could have negotiated an equitable resolution with the Council.

Instead, Ballard presented the Council with a fait accompli. He waited until the last minute to deliver a budget that will cripple a number of critical services–for no reason other than those services are being delivered by the opposing party. In Ballard’s cynical budget, public safety takes a back seat to partisanship. It’s his way or the highway.

Shades of Richard Mourdock.

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Questions and Answers

Since Halloween is fast approaching, it seems appropriate to write about something scary. And for scary, little can compare to the Indiana Family Institute’s candidate questionnaire.

It was bad enough looking at the Right to Life questions and Pence and Mourdock’s answers. Both would outlaw abortion with an exception ONLY for the life of the mother. Both support “personhood” legislation that would outlaw most birth control methods.

I thought Right to Life’s questions were scary, but the Indiana Family Institute–which has long supported Pence and which supports him for Governor–has a questionnaire that lays bare a truly terrifying agenda.

Let’s look at their positions on education–if you could still call it “education” after adopting those positions. They want educational choice–defined as “vouchers to send children to any public, private, religious or home school.” (Just ignore that pesky constitution!) They want parents who choose to home school to do so without any new regulations. They want to “redefine” bullying, in order to protect “students who express opposition to the promotion of homosexuality.” (Wouldn’t want to hurt the feelings of those little gay-tormenters they’re raising!) And they want “Academic liberty” for teachers who want to “discuss the problems and weaknesses of evolutionary theory.” (i.e., they want their version of religion taught in science classes.)

Anti-gay bigotry, unsurprisingly, permeates the questionnaire. There are references to the “homosexual agenda.” They want candidates to agree to “standardize” business regulations by overturning local ordinances that protect GLBT people against discrimination in education, employment and housing. They want to pass a Constitutional Amendment limiting marriage to heterosexuals. And of course, they want to protect those little schoolyard bullies.

There are also the more general “morality” issues they want to dictate. They want to prohibit casinos, discontinue state support of the Kinsey Institute (evidently, studying sex is just as immoral as engaging in it) and require dancers in strip clubs to remain 6 feet away from customers at all times.

There’s more, but you get the idea. And next week, there’s a very high probability that we will elect a governor who endorses all of these retrograde positions, and has supported them throughout his entire career in public life. Mike Pence–a governor for the 15th Century!

Now that’s scary!

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Poor Fiscal Management. Again.

Government isn’t a business, but it does have an obligation to conduct its operations in a business-like way.

According to recent news reports, three state agencies — the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Health and the State Budget Agency — paid more than $130,500 in late fees in fiscal years 2011 and 2012. The payments were uncovered in recently released audits by the Indiana State Board of Accounts.

The penalties were assessed because the agencies failed to pay claims on time. The audit reports say the delays resulted, in “an unnecessary use of state funds.” The reports are just one more bit of embarrassing evidence of this administration’s tenuous grasp on fiscal competence. (Remember that 300 million dollars they “found” awhile back? Or the payments “inadvertently” withheld from local government agencies?)

The report is not just a reminder that our Governor’s much-touted business acumen is mostly hype. It is also a reminder to those of us who vote that the positions politicians are spending millions of dollars to win require not-so-glamorous skills. Running state government requires an understanding of a whole range of management practices, many of which go beyond the skills required by private-sector enterprises: building bridges with fractious legislators, demanding accountability from those you’ve appointed to run departments, an acquaintance with the intricacies of policy formation, and an ability to communicate with citizens.

Campaigns test the ability to connect with enough voters to get elected, but otherwise, require no evidence that a candidate possesses any of these skills, and most have not held previous positions that demanded them. So we get rigid ideologues who–despite their pro-business rhetoric–never met a payroll, never had to build a team from competing factions, never had to be accountable to anyone who didn’t agree with them.

I’ve had my differences with the Daniels Administration, and I’ve aired many of those differences here. But the Governor is pragmatic and intelligent, and has done many things well (been to the BMV lately?? Much improved.)

Mike Pence is a different matter entirely. Pence is running a strategically brilliant campaign for Governor–a campaign intended to “upgrade” the Pence 1.0 version to a kinder, gentler, and infinitely more competent Pence 2.0. His 30-second spots portray someone very different from the culture warrior whose entire focus while in Congress has been on de-funding Planned Parenthood, working with Todd Akin to define “legitimate” rape and outlaw most existing birth control methods, and ensure that GLBT folks remain second-class citizens. Fortunately for women and gays, Pence has been a much more effective Tea Party spokesman than legislator: in his eleven years in Congress, he’s sponsored 63 bills and has been successful in getting exactly none of them passed. Only three ever made it out of committee.

Unfortunately for Pence and the other “true believers” who have come to dominate the GOP, governing involves a lot of non-glamorous, practical tasks where conciliation, an open mind and sound information are required. Self-righteousness, ostentatious piety and intransigence don’t contribute much to transportation policy or parks maintenance–or to fiscal accountability.