THE PRINCIPLE OF THE COMMISSION FORM OF GOVERNMENT APPLIED TO THE
LARGER CITIES
If the city be a larger one, with 100,000 male voters and upward,
and a population of 700,000 to 1,000,000 and upward, its government
by a small commission, each member of which is elected from a wieldy
district, or by a wieldy “quota” under the Hare plan, becomes
impossible. When districts begin to have more than 6,000 male voters
and a population of more than 50,000, or the “quotas” are over 6,000
male voters, they are probably no longer wieldy. Yet a commission of
16 and upward is no longer a body which can exercise legislative and
executive power in a convenient manner, like a board of 5, or even 9.
The problem of the application of the principles of the commission form
of government to the larger cities is therefore this: How can districts
or “quotas” be kept wieldy and the city at the same time be governed by
a small commission having both legislative and executive powers?
One solution of the problem is as follows: The control of the entire
executive and legislative power of the municipality should be vested
in the municipal council. This should be composed of as many members
as there are wieldy districts or wieldy “quotas” in the municipality.
Taking 3,000 voters as making up a wieldy district or “quota,” this
would give a city of 100,000 male voters a council of 33 and a city
of 300,000 male voters a council of 100. This last might be reduced
to 50 if the maximum of 6,000 male voters be taken as the measure
of a wieldy district or “quota.” This council should then appoint
the mayor and perhaps, with the mayor’s approval, the heads of the
departments, all to hold office at the pleasure of the council.[14]
The mayor and his heads of departments should then form a governing
commission or board with such executive and legislative powers as might
be conferred by ordinances passed by the council and subject at all
times to the control of the council. Such a scheme would retain the
system of electing representatives from wieldy districts. There would
rest upon them full responsibility for the exercise of the legislative
and executive power. Yet they would be left free to delegate executive
power and some legislative power to a commission of administrators
whose whole business it was to serve the municipal government. Such
a commission might be composed of the leaders of the majority of the
council or of expert municipal managers brought from any part of the
world, or both. The council should be left free to choose what method
it would adopt.
A plan of government for our larger cities frequently adopted is
this: Single aldermen are elected from each wieldy district in the
municipality. All the aldermen thus selected form a city council which
exercises the legislative power. The mayor is elected at large. He
presides over the city council and, with the heads of his executive
departments who hold at his pleasure, wields the entire executive
power. The new Cleveland charter gives the department heads seats
in the council with the right to address that body. There is here a
proximity of the executive and legislative power, rather than a real
union of it. Whatever union there may be is largely on the side of
giving the executive a position in the deliberations of the legislative
body. The council has no function in the actual exercise of the
executive power. The entire executive power is really concentrated in a
single individual elected at large and holding office for two and often
four years. This feature is in sharp contrast to the vesting of the
executive power in the representatives of wieldy districts or “quotas,”
who control and direct the exercise of that power by a single executive
who holds at their pleasure.
The one plan that should not be attempted in our larger cities is
that of providing for the union of the executive and legislative
functions in a few commissioners elected at large, thereby violating
the essential principle of electing representatives from wieldy
geographical districts or by wieldy “quotas.”
FOOTNOTES:
[14] See Richard S. Childs, “The Theory of the New Controlled-Executive
Plan,” _National Municipal Review_, II, 76 (January, 1913); C. G. Hoag,
“The Representative Plan of Government,” _The American City_, April,
1913.