How Preferential Treatment Toward Municipal Employees and Contractors Can Affect Elections

Ferguson, MO — where Michael Brown was recently killed by a police officer, and the police department's first reaction was to protect the officer and keep the facts secret — is an unusual case of a local government where a scandal is likely to actually increase rather than decrease citizen participation in government.

There is an interesting column today in Vox about why a primarily black city has a nearly all-white government. The article quotes Prof. Jeff Smith, formerly a St. Louis-area state senator, explaining the situation (which he says is relatively common to suburbs where minorities have moved in recent decades) as follows:

Longtime white residents have consolidated power, continuing to dominate the City Councils and school boards despite sweeping demographic change. They have retained control of patronage jobs and municipal contracts awarded to allies.

The North County Labor Club, whose overwhelmingly white constituent unions (plumbers, pipe fitters, electrical workers, sprinkler fitters) have benefited from these arrangements, operates a potent voter-turnout operation that backs white candidates over black upstarts. The more municipal contracts an organization receives, the more generously it can fund re-election campaigns. Construction, waste and other long-term contracts with private firms have traditionally excluded blacks from the ownership side and, usually, the work force as well.

Thus, the failure to pass laws that require minority participation in local government contracts (as owners and as workers) can be an indication of the same sort of preferential treatment that allows nepotism among the uniformed departments. Since construction unions and contractors, along with government employee unions, make the difference with respect to many local elections, if the unions do not reflect the populace, those who are elected often do not reflect the populace either.

Of course, this is the not only problem. In Ferguson, as in so many municipalities, it is pitifully low voter turnout, based on indifference and/or lack of trust, that allows unions, contractors, and their families to win elections all by themselves.

Another cause of this low voter turnout, as the article explains, is the decision when to hold local elections. In Ferguson, local elections are held in April of odd years, when few people are thinking about elections. According to the article, cities tend to hold elections in odd years, while counties more often hold them in even years. The recognition of this problem has led to a trend in changing local elections to even years, to get more voters involved. California, as usual, is leading the way, with even-year elections in such cities as San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, San Jose, Anaheim, Richmond, Berkeley, San Leandro, and many cities in Los Angeles County.

Next year, however, things will likely be different. Ferguson's residents will now care who runs their city.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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