[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 68 (Thursday, May 26, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: May 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA'S FISCAL AND POLITICAL HOUSE
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HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK
of california
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, May 25, 1994
Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, the District of Columbia government is
struggling to bring its house in order. There are serious fiscal and
management problems confronting this city's elected officials. The
District is in a financial mess because it did not realistically cut
spending to meet declining revenues in recent years. Instead, it relied
on congressional bailouts, short-term borrowing, and budgeting
contrivances.
The District faces the problems, challenges, and opportunities common
to many American cities today. But it also has the unique role of being
the Nation's Capital, too. Congress must share responsibility with
local officials for creating and solving these problems. My colleague
from California, Mr. Dixon, is addressing these issues as his
subcommittee considers the fiscal year 1995 appropriation for the
District. The House District Committee will address them next month
when we hold hearings on the District's Federal payment.
However, the ultimate judgment for selecting solutions will rest
where it should, with the District's voters. I believe that District
voters, like voters everywhere, will surprise many when they
demonstrate their understanding of complex issues and competing
candidates.
Twenty years ago, District voters passed the Home Rule Charter.
Twenty years later, I am sure they will again speak with conviction.
The answer to the city's problems will be found in the relationship
between the residents and their elected leaders. I will only support
congressional involvement which is built on that foundation.
I commend a recent Post column to my colleagues. It raises several
interesting ideas about the District's government and elected
officials. While I don't necessarily agree with everything proposed,
this is the type of dialog the city needs. The article was written by
two local journalists, Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood, whose recent book,
``Dream City: Race, Power and the Decline of Washington, DC,'' charts
the course of District politics since Home Rule. The article and the
book should be required reading for everyone concerned about how the
District came to be in this situation and what to do next.
[From the Washington Post, May 22, 1994]
Getting Real About D.C.: The Case for City Management
(By Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood)
Twenty years ago this month the democracy-starved voters of
the District of Columbia went to the polls and ratified the
Home Rule Act, a limited and in many ways begrudging form of
government crafted by congressional overseers. It was the
best the city could get at the time.
Now, after two decades in operation, that system of semi-
independent self-government is in desperate need of reform.
Debilitating social and fiscal problems spur flight by both
white and black middle-class families who should be the heart
of the city's stability and tax base. Yet more time is spent
in Congress, the city government and the media spreading
blame rather than working for change.
For those who stay in the District, and for those who live
nearby but understand the need to keep the central city
healthy, it is time to focus on the future of the nation's
capital as hometown to (at last count) more than 575,000
Americans. This urgent undertaking will require a cold-eyed
evaluation of the past 20 years, the strength to recognize
home rule's shortcomings, and the courage to chart a new
course.
There is no better place to begin the process than in Room
2400 of the Rayburn House Office Building, the offices of
Rep. Julian Dixon of California. Advocates of more rights for
District citizens may balk at beginning on Capitol Hill, but
consider Dixon's unique perspective. He was born in the
District and spent his childhood here in a stable, black
middle-class neighborhood. Like thousands of other middle-
class African Americans who grew up here, he remembers summer
afternoons in a community where neighbors looked out for the
kids on the block. In 1979, Dixon returned as the
representative from the 32nd District of California, and he's
kept a home in the District ever since. A year after he
arrived he became chairman of the House appropriations
subcommittee on the District of Columbia--a job with little
prestige, but Dixon keeps it because he cares for his
hometown. Dixon knows the city's finances, and he's confused.
``Where's the money?'' he asked recently, referring to the
half a billion dollars that the District government has
either borrowed or received from Congress in the last two
years, over and above the federal payment and tax revenues.
``How can the government be $300 million in the hole? If the
government stopped here tomorrow, how much would it owe its
creditors?''
Dixon hopes to answer these questions in congressional
hearings he will begin this week but he knows that the
solutions to the government's shortcomings lie beyond the
next budget cycle. ``Without retrenching from home rule,'' he
says, ``we have to rethink its structure.''
Dixon has the right idea, especially in two main areas in
need of reform: political structure and management.
Politics first. Let's start by facing up to the fact that
the District is not like Philadelphia, Boston, New York or
any other city with similar urban problems. The city is
unique, if only because its budget is controlled by a
Congress where it has no voting representation. But that
obvious difference masks a more fundamental disparity. From
1874, when Congress abolished local self-government, until
1974 when the home rule act took effect, the citizens of
Washington had no local political culture, no patronage
system other than one controlled by congressional overseers,
no power over how their city was run. Every other major
American city developed a political establishment that is now
at least 100 years in the making. Our local political system
has been growing for just over two decades. It's young, it's
unruly and it's taken some bad turns.
For instance, it is effectively a one-party system;
Democrats out-register fumbling and reclusive Republicans by
9 to 1. The Statehood Party is minuscule, and there are no
solid, independent political organizations that can groom
candidates for the ballot. In such a small political
community, where's the public debate? Democracy is a
participation sport. Solutions and a sense of community arise
from vigorous political competition.
To invigorate local elections, Dixon suggests runoffs among
the two top vote-getters in the mayoral race. A majority of
voters would then elect the truly strongest candidate, rather
than the current system of one more vote than the next
candidate and you win.
Our next suggestion may come as a shock: There aren't
enough elected offices in the current political system. An
aspiring politician can dream of being an advisory
neighborhood commissioner representing just 2,000 people, a
school board member, a council member, the mayor or the non-
voting delegate to Congress. With so few opportunities--and
sporadic media coverage that fails to create the sense of a
true hometown--the city hasn't developed a viable political
farm system. Five months from the mayoral primary, here are
the three choices so far: an unpopular incumbent, City
Council member who's been rejected by the voters three times
in past mayoral bids and a former three-term mayor who's
trying to resurrect himself. More seasoned politicians could
grow out of a system with more opportunities.
Why not make the corporation counsel, or city attorney, an
elective office instead of a mayoral appointee? How about
establishing a local district attorney and having voters
choose the person who prosecutes local criminals rather than
the current system in which the presidentially appointed U.S.
attorney serves as chief prosecutor. The city could elect a
comptroller, a treasure, an independent auditor. Each would
develop a political base with roots in the community, and
from those roots could grow a truly committed and connected
electorate.
The City Council needs revamping too. Dixon suggests the
council elect its own chairman, rather than having voters
decide who can best run the council. Why not also halve
the salaries--now over $70,000 a year--and make the
council a truly part-time job as it was conceived to be?
Then double the number of members, to make it more like a
legislature? We would get debate, diversity and coalitions
of power.
And why should we have a year-round legislature? Maybe it
should meet in legislative session for only two or three
months, as in Virginia and Maryland, rather than its nearly
nonstop churning of legislation. Who can keep track except
staff members and lobbyists? The council could meet in
monthly sessions the rest of the year to take care of routine
municipal affairs. A defined legislative session would allow
citizens to focus on and participate in the making of city
laws.
Political reform is well and good, but in Dixon's eyes,
nothing comes before good management, something the city is
obviously lacking.
It's painfully clear that management of key city agencies
has been marred by political considerations, low pay and lack
of experience. Mayor Kelly's best hire in her first year was
Jack Bond, a manager with a proven track record in Durham,
N.C., and other cities. Although Bond officially resigned, in
fact the mayor forced him out for reasons that remain
unclear.
The worst case of horrendous management is in the public
housing department, which has had more than a dozen directors
in as many years. Thanks in part to inept management, the
city's public housing complexes are breeding grounds for drug
dependency, gunplay and poverty. Just as important, the
spillover effect undermines what otherwise would be more
stable working poor, middle and upper-income black
neighborhoods.
Dixon suggests that the day-to-day operations of the city
be placed in the hands of a professional city manager. That
person could be nominated by the mayor and confirmed by the
council. ``The manager could then be more immune to the day-
to-day politics of the city,'' says Dixon.
Identifying flaws in the way the District has developed
under 20 years of the Home Rule Act is not difficult. The
tough part is charting the course toward a healthy social,
political and financial future. How do we make the second 20
years of the city's growth a success story?
The first step is to acknowledge our current dependence on
Congress, and in return demand that Congress fulfill its part
of the relationship. In this phase, the District gets its
financial house in order. In some measure, this has already
begun, with the recent request--by Dixon and Rep. Pete Stark
(D-Calif.)--that two federal agencies conduct a thorough
examination of the city's books.
But the District could play a leading rather than trailing
role by embracing a financial oversight commission to review
the nuts and bolts of many city agencies. The commission
would be made up of local and federal officials whose mandate
would be more than advisory. Such a preemptive strike could
forestall the installation of a mandatory board like the one
that was given power to oversee New York City's government in
the 1970s.
To the most zealous statehood advocates, this could seem a
serious retreat from home rule. But look around. The federal
government is already involved in a host of local government
functions: Federal agents police the streets; federal
officials are now part of an executive commission assigned to
fix city public housing; courts dictate foster care and
prison health; federal auditors are examining every item of
local spending.
An oversight commission might need as many as five years to
do its work. But in the process, city residents would take
control of more government functions, such as local criminal
prosecution, while Congress relinquished power to review the
city's budget. Such a slow but steady march toward full
independence is the path Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton believes
has the best chance of success.
Dixon and Norton aren't alone in their vision of
restructuring and reform. The consensus to reevaluate home
rule is spreading from the Greater Washington Board of Trade
to the Democratic State Committee to the streets, where
frustration with the status quo runs higher every day. All
people of good will want safe streets, better housing, decent
schools, steady jobs and a local government that works. Only
a fresh look at home rule will get them what they want.
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