Position Statement in Opposition to the Blackwood Amendment for a Strong Dallas Mayor

There is no question that reform is needed at Dallas City Hall. While recent efforts to revitalize downtown have shown signs of potential, the question of whether Dallas has the institutional leadership necessary to achieve this promise continues to cloud any clear view of the city's future. The sparring between the office of the mayor and the office of the city manager consistently places evidence of Dallas's governmental crisis on the front pages of area newspapers.

But it is important that, when addressing a problem, one is sure that a proposed solution would not do more harm than good. While often frustrating, the present governmental system in Dallas has a great deal to recommend it. The existence of fourteen cleanly drawn, geographically discrete districts ensure that close attention can be paid to the diverse communities that comprise our city. Mechanisms that require super-majorities within the council help to foster a culture of consensus, where no small group of council members can run roughshod over the rest of the city.

That consensus was on display recently, as members of the city council came together to pledge support for reforming the Dallas city government through a November ballot initiative. The initiative, which will be revealed to the public tomorrow, will include a stronger role for the mayor of Dallas.

However, that role will not be as strong as the one envisioned by the Blackwood Amendment, a proposal which will be found on the May 7, 2005 municipal election ballot. The Blackwood Amendment is a far-reaching redesign of the Dallas city government, and goes beyond what is necessary to address the city's governmental problems. While the supporters of the Blackwood Amendment should be commended for bringing this discussion to the forefront, voters should carefully weigh the proposal, and its potential side effects, before casting their ballot in May.

Examining the Blackwood Amendment

The Blackwood Amendment is, essentially, a major rewrite of the Dallas City Charter. More than simply appending another chapter to the document, the amendment reorganizes, rewords and restructures large portions of Dallas's legal foundation.

The Blackwood Amendment would eliminate the position of city manager, and transfer all powers previously held by that officer to the mayor. It also revises the relationship between the mayor and city council, and transfers some powers currently held by the council, such as appointing the city secretary, to the mayor.

Some actions that formerly would have required a city council consensus, such as dissolving city departments not specifically created by the charter, will, under the amendment, be possible via mayoral fiat. The strengthened mayor would continue to serve on the city council, would continue to receive the same level of compensation, and would continue to serve terms based on the existing electoral schedule and limitations.

The mayor would have sole hiring and firing authority for the executive staff which presently serves under the city manager. The mayor would be able to appoint and dismiss without council approval the city secretary, city attorney, and the police and fire chiefs. However, appointments to city commissions would continue to require majority approval by the council, as would the appointment by the mayor of a member of the council to serve as mayor pro tem.

All financial matters would remain the jurisdiction of the council, though the mayor would continue to produce and submit an annual budget, as required by state law. The mayor would not have a veto over legislation passed by the council.

While the system proposed in the Blackwood Amendment would be one of the weakest strong-mayor systems in the nation, it would still be a drastic reapportionment of political authority at City Hall. It would unbalance the court-mandated 14-1 system that has formed the foundation of Dallas's government for over a decade.

The voters of Dallas would be given a democratic recourse towards the city's chief executive, the mayor, but only in election years. Whereas a super-majority of the city council can fire the city manager at any time, under the revised system the only middle-term options for removing a problem mayor would be recall or impeachment, both of which are difficult propositions, both politically and logistically. The proposal risks the replacement of the stagnation caused by mayor-manager feuding with the potential of a mayoral autocracy.

The Position of the Dallas County Young Democrats

The Dallas County Young Democrats oppose the Blackwood Amendment to the Dallas City Charter, and encourage all of our Dallas-resident members to vote against the proposal on May 7, 2005. While we believe that a stronger hand is needed to guide Dallas into a brighter future, we also believe that this proposal goes to far. While it removes the undemocratic city manager from the scene, it replaces that officer with a mayor whose increased power and broad electoral base will make him or her less in touch with the populace than local council members. Thus, by strengthening the mayor against the council, the proposal might in fact weaken democratic pressures on the city government.

We also take issue with the broad range of powers that the proposal would hand to the mayor. Supporters of the proposal will argue that this would be one of the weakest strong mayors in the nation, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether this mayor is too strong for Dallas. We do not support a city government that reduces the role of the city council to an effective rubber stamp. Under the proposal, many important offices would be filled by mere mayoral fiat, and the city council's influence on many other municipal matters would wane.

We might be more inclined to support the Blackwood Amendment were there not alternatives on the horizon. The members of the city council have pledged to put together a gentler strong mayor initiative, one which hews more closely to the proposals of a board which examined our city's government in 2003. We hope their proposal will maintain a better balance between the need to expand the powers of the mayor and the necessity of keeping the council strong. The proposal will be made public tomorrow, and political pressure will see to it that the proposal does appear on the November ballot. Voters can rest assured that, even if they vote against the Blackwood Amendment, they are not forever ending Dallas's ability to strengthen the mayor.

And then there's the issue of the sitting mayor. Whether one supports Laura Miller or not, the fact remains that when voters elected her mayor of Dallas, it was not to serve with the powers that the Blackwood Amendment would provide. To take an elected officer and drastically increase her authority midterm, in a manner not considered by voters during her election, flies in the face of the democracy the Blackwood Amendment supporters claim to hope to foster.

We believe that the city of Dallas needs a strong, democratically responsive government. However, we also believe in maintaining a healthy balance between the mayor and the city council is essential to ensuring that there is a place for all Dallas residents in Dallas's future. While the Blackwood Amendment certainly addresses the first of our concerns, it fails to meet our second qualification. Therefore, we cannot support this particular strong mayor proposal, and we encourage all of our members to join us in voting against the Blackwood Amendment.