Joseph Mercurio on "Non-partisan Municipal Elections: Can Bloomberg Extend His Success to Another Campaign Promise?"

Can Bloomberg Extend His Success to Another Campaign Promise?

Mayor Mike Bloomberg showed his ability to manage not only the numbers but also the city's difficult political environment. He is in office just a few months and is a public political player for only a little longer as a candidate. With that experience and his successful career in the financial-communications field he's managed to pull together a tough city.

He prepared a city budget for the next year, settled a long unresolved major municipal union contract and managed to get the State Legislature to give New York City mayors control of the city's school system. School governance reform has eluded several mayors before him.

Now he is pursuing another major reform: to change municipal elections to non-partisan elections, a reform he campaigned on when running for Mayor. This is not a new untested idea. It is currently the way elections are conducted in most U. S. cities, including the largest cities.

There was an immediate reaction from the press and some pundits that has been startlingly uninformed. The confusion comes partly from the name of this type of election: "non-partisan." It does not mean without ideology or even without party. It means all candidates run and all voters vote regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof together in an election.

In New York City the Democratic Party is the dominant political party. It could be argued that their success is due to the fact that they mirror the majority of the community politically and ideologically and deserve this sweeping control. In many districts and for perhaps most elected officials this is in fact true. But we do not know it from the election process.

In New York City there are currently 3,720,431 people registered to vote and 2,503,760 are enrolled as Democrats. But only 790,019 voted for mayor in the last primary and fewer Democrats voted for down ballot offices like City Council in that primary.

Unfortunately, virtually none of the City Council races was genuinely contested in the November ballot so the real contest was in the primary. Often districts had multiple primary candidates so less than 5% of the Democrats, a tiny portion of the adults in the district chose the winner. There was no real opportunity for a third of the electorate -- members of other parties and voters not affiliated with a party -- to choose a candidate.

Non-partisan elections would allow every voter to participate, party members and independents (called "blanks" in the trade) alike. We have this in special elections for City Council in the current Charter. If a City Council vacancy develops, all candidates run together in one election with all voters participating.

Non-partisan does not mean without debate. Candidates could still participate in public policy debates, often taking opposing viewpoints based on political ideology and party affiliation. They would also be free to talk about their party affiliation and support. Political parties would still be allowed to operate, getting out their party vote for favored candidates. Even special interest groups could push candidates among their constituencies. But the election would take place among the universe of all voters.

On New York 1's "Inside City Hall City" Council Speaker Gifford Miller stated his initial opposition to non-partisan elections because he felt that candidates should stand for what they believe in and not hide in a non-partisan environment. This was ironic, since he was first elected in a non-partisan Special Election to fill a Council vacancy on the East Side. He was unopposed in future Primaries and had only nominal opposition in subsequent General Elections.

In his first race, Miller was supported by the local Democratic club and most Democratic public and party officials and had no trouble communicating that fact to his core party members. The ideology and political leanings of the candidates was clear in that election, as it is throughout the country where non-partisan elections exist.

It is often the case that two candidates of the same party with similar positions on issues will face each other in a runoff if neither receives the minimum number of votes, 40 or 50%, in a partisan election. In contrast, issues, merit and accomplishment of the candidates matter more in non-partisan elections.

Where non-partisan municipal elections are held, people with more varied backgrounds get to participate and minority candidates are very successful. More of the electorate participates in real contested elections, moderating the extremes in the political parties.