Mayor Should Continue to Make Committee Appointments

Madison common council member Michael Schumacher suggests a change in the committee appointment system. Except for the Madison Common Council Organization Committee, all city appointments to committees of both citizens and elected officials are made by the mayor.

Schumacher, looking to cities like Portland, Oregon, suggest in A Legislative Affair that "...a Council that has the authority to appoint its own members to city committees will assert itself more and exercise such responsibility with more accountability."

Such a shift would change the balance of power between the mayor and the common council and has other implications.

Madison, like most Wisconsin cities has a weak mayor, strong council form of government. Mayors cannot appoint new department and division heads upon election and form a cabinet government. 

The mayor has limited ability to modify or change expenditures once the budget is adopted. In Wisconsin the procedure for making budget amendments is very cumbersome and difficult. The mayor is as bound to the process as the common council. In fact in some cases city department heads have more authority to change expenditures than the mayor. So much for executive prerogative.

When it comes time to making committee appointments a variety of factors need consideration and all of the committee appointments need to be examined as a single body of work:

• geographic representation
• diversity by gender and race
• political views
• seniority must be balanced with the need to take turns
• minimize Balkanization of the city

There is only one person who was elected by the entire city in a position to make the appointments and that is the mayor.

Alderman Schumacher suggests that, "What is intended is to restore and/or create a stronger balance of power between the legislative and executive branch of our local government." I would suggest that if there is an imbalance that the resolution lies elsewhere.

I can see a legislative body where all of the appointments are made by the common council. But if we go there, we must examine the entire structure of the city government and the powers of the mayor as well as the council members.

Portland, Oregon operates under a commission form of government. They have a handful of commissioners, each one representing about 100,000 people. That would leave Madison with 2.2 council members....any takers?

The entire structure of Portland's city government is different from ours. I once suggested we look at Portland's government as a working model and angry alders and towns people with ropes, pitchforks, and torches stormed the fourth floor of the City-County Building....any takers?

The strutural components of governemnt are inter-related. When changing one, the others need examination.

 

Comments

[germantown_kid]

True, Madison has always had weak mayors.

[R.J.]

Ahhh good ol' Portland.
Portland has "light" rail, therefore must have "light" rail.
Portland is overrun with L.A. gangs, therefore we must be overrun with Chicago gangs.
When do get some fish monger stands on the isthmus?

[DAR]

There is an easy way to solve the problem of who makes the appointments. The council Pres gets his first 2 choices, The vice gets one choice, then CCOC goes through requests by alders in order of seniority, giving each their highest open choice. For those of equal seniority draw straws. Go through the 20 alders 4 passes. Reverse the order of those with equal seniority each pass. CCOC assigns remaining openings after everyone has gotten four choices. This way every alder will get something (perhaps not their top, but 4 on their list) that interests them.