Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility on Strong Mayor Initiative

The San Jose City Council is forging ahead with a November ballot proposition to “align authority with accountability” as Mayor Liccardo wrote in his memorandum proposing changing the City Charter to provide the Mayor more power, reduce the power of special interests and move the mayoral election to coincide with the presidential election cycle. “What’s the rush?” asks Pat Waite, President of Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility.

Opportunity Now: This proposed ballot measure came upon us rather quickly, didn’t it?

Pat Waite: This particular initiative did, but it’s not really a new idea. The idea of converting San Jose from a council-manager form of government to a mayor-council form, also called a strong mayor system, has been a topic of discussion for decades. In the 1980s, a Charter Revision Commission studied it for sixteen before recommending not changing from the council-manager form.

ON: A lot has changed in San Jose since the ‘80’s. Maybe it is time for San Jose’s form of government to change, too.

Pat Waite: That may be true. But the decision process should be a thoughtful, transparent one that includes significant public engagement. Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility (we refer to ourselves as CFR) believes it appropriate to convene a Charter Revision Commission to determine if we should change our form of government. There is no way to accomplish that in time to put anything on the November ballot. CFR recommends that the City Council pump the brakes on the proposal, not necessarily bring it to a screeching halt but making time for a thorough, inclusive process. What’s the rush?

ON: That seems like a good question…what is the rush?

Pat Waite: I believe that Mayor Liccardo is reacting to feedback he has received from residents regarding how our city should handle the Pandemic response. Residents are frustrated, they want something done about it yesterday, and they view the Mayor as the one in charge who should be making things happen.

But in our council-manager form of government he is not actually in charge. The Mayor is just one vote of eleven needed to drive policy decisions for San Jose. Then the Council must rely on the City Manager to enact those policies. This makes for a sometimes slow and tedious process that is anathema to our instant-gratification world. Not only are residents frustrated by inaction, I believe the Mayor is, too, and this is one way he feels he can address the situation. Come November, the issues will still be relatively fresh in voters’ minds. In two or four years this will hopefully be a memory. Don’t waste a good crisis, as they say.

ON: The proposal consists of three areas of recommendations, the first of which is campaign finance reform and a gift ban. Can you talk about that?

Pat Waite: Sure, there is sound rationale behind the reform ideas: diminish the influence of special interest groups. Under the proposal, councilmembers and mayors would not be allowed to vote on issues directly impacting an interest group that has made campaign contributions to the candidate. That sounds reasonable, but who is going to do the tracking? Is there a minimum dollar threshold? I also find it somewhat demeaning to councilmembers, implying that their vote can be bought for a mere $600.

That said, there is a significant problem with one of the reform recommendations, which would prohibit lobbyists from making political contributions. If the initiative moves forward, they should drop that, because it contravenes the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC.

ON: Talk about the second area of the proposal, shifting responsibility for the hiring and firing of the City Manager from the City Council to the Mayor.

Pat Waite: That is fairly straightforward, but also the biggest point of contention. Today, the City Manager serves at the pleasure of the City Council. It takes a Council vote body to hire or fire the City Manager. The proposal would transfer that authority to the Mayor’s Office. Notably, the councilmembers opposed to abdicating that power to the mayor are the more labor-friendly ones, although I suspect that if a labor-friendly mayor proposed such a change the more business-friendly councilmembers would oppose it.

ON: The last area involves moving the mayoral election to coincide with presidential elections so that our elections are more inclusive.

Pat Waite: Indeed. That is likely another reason that this has risen so rapidly. Labor tried placing an initiative doing exactly that on the November ballot, but fell short of the required signatures. It is interesting to note that Mayor Liccardo once opposed that proposal but now he embraces it.

The motivation is well founded, we should involve as many voters as possible in our elections. But there may be unintended consequences. Chiefly, CFR is concerned about the effect moving the mayoral election will have on the odd-numbered districts whose elections are off the presidential election cycle. Without the mayor’s race to drive interest, we could see a reduction from the relatively low rates of voter turnout, meaning even fewer voters will decide who the political leaders for half of our City’s districts will be. This is already happening in San Jose. Councilmember Carrasco was elected when she received 4,369 votes out of the 8,221 cast in the District 5 primary race, enough to clear the 50% threshold and win outright, without a general election run-off. In 2018, she received 6,707 of the 9,729 votes cast to win outright once again in the primary. District 5 has about 40,000 registered voters. If we move the mayoral election, we should seriously consider aligning all city elections with the presidential cycle.

ON: Are there other unintended consequences?

Pat Waite: Well, presidential campaigns are noisy. We get barraged with advertisements regarding national issues. I’m afraid it will be hard to get voters to focus on San Jose issues. We may end up with less well-informed voters than we have today. That could be a bad thing.

ON: What can concerned residents do?

Pat Waite: The City Council is holding a special meeting on July 28th at 9:00am to consider the ballot initiative language. Interested residents should reach out to their Mayor and Councilmembers to let them know what they think. CFR has a draft letter available on our web site if you want to send a message opposing the current proposal. Our web address is www.cfr-sj.org.

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