Politics and Elections

Monday Quick Hits—Proximity for Better or Worse

—Congrats to the Tigers for the win last night, but the World Series won't help Detroit very much, and the Super Bowl back in February didn't either.

—More coming this week on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's purchase of the Chicago Board of Trade to create the world's biggest exchange.

—Old fashioned physical proximity still matters in Silicon Valley, while Wall Street looks to Pennsylvania to back up, spread out and spread risk. (More at WallStreetWest.org).

—Speaking of spread-out New York, Brookings finds exurbia ascendant north of the city.

—On the left coast, Witold Rybczynski looks at San Francisco and when bad architecture happens to good cities.

—Back East, The Boston Globe is on track for its first unprofitable year ever, and Julia Vitullo-Martin compares Philadelphia to Boston and finds Philly's culture wanting. (Of course Boston being THE university town, with a built-in high tech sector as such, also helps).

—And Harry Siegel in the New York Post on how Governor Pataki and his fellow incumbocrats hollowed out New York's GOP.

Quick Hits-Coast to Coast Crooks

—We'll have more on recidivism posted later this week. In the meantime, here's would-be A.G. Moonbeam on Oakland's returning prisoners [subscriber only link] in the weekend Wall Street Journal:

As attorney general, Mr. Brown wants to target prisoner recidivism in California, where roughly 120,000 convicts are released annually, and 80,000 returned to prison annually. "They have 8th-grade reading levels, no skills, their attitudes are bad, many are addicted to drugs and they are coming back to disrupt the community," he says. "That's why I'm putting GPS bracelets on them in Oakland. Whether they are active enough that we can root them out of certain neighborhoods at curfew and enforce it -- well, I am at least attempting to compensate for the failed parole system."

—Is there a Villaraigosa-Schwarzenegger alliance in the making? The governor's appointment of the mayor's sister "to a $149,160-a-year judgeship on the Los Angeles County Superior Court" has some Democratic Party loyalists fuming. The Phil Angelides gubernatorial campaign has accused the mayor of placing his family’s finances above his duties to the Democratic party. More likely Villaraigosa would like to see Angelides lose so that he can run for governor in four years when the term-limited Schwarzenegger has to step down."

—And a slap at Villaraigosa, as the Board of Education unanimously selected a new superintendent, retired Navy Vice Admiral David L. Brewer III, an education neophyte, just weeks before new legislation is scheduled to take effect giving the mayor substantial authority over local schools, including the functional ability to veto the hiring and firing of superintendents.

Villaraigosa, who won office in part because of black voters disenchanted with then-mayor James Hahn for his decision to fire black Police Chief Bernard Parks, will have to be cautious in criticizing the board's choice of Brewer, who is black.

—Miami may be known for its pay-to-play culture, but Orlando is making strides. It turns out the Magic, who are in the midst of a deal to build a new arena with about $280 million in taxpayer subsidies, have been caught paying $200,000 in "shut-up money" to well-known radio host, political consultant and so-called "Voice of the People" Doug Guetzloe. The arrangement came just after a report that Guetzloe had been paid $107,500 by the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority, an agency he's often criticized, for a two page report.

The Magic's pay-offs were made through the team's law firm, which it turns out has paid another half a million dollars to Guetzloe over the past 10 years, with payments frequently coinciding with the radio host playing a politically active role in cities where the firm faced opposition to development projects they represented.

—In St. Louis, still more allegations of voter fraud directed at the left wing and supposedly grassroots group ACORN.

—In D.C., thugs are going where the money is.

Tough Times Ahead for Daley?

Newsweek has a web exclusive interview with Chicago mayor Richard Daley well worth a read. Daley, who's running for an unprecedented sixth term, has been taking on not only his own City Council, but city councils nationwide over local attempts to exert control over mega box store wages. He's now calling for a national minimum wage that can't be increased locally to ensure cities remain competitive in spite of populist councils, saying that, "That has to be increased (nationally) because if we increase ours and no one increases theirs in the suburban area, we're up here and you're down there."

Locally, he vetoed a bill that would have required retailers with at least $1 billion a year in sales and with stores of at least 90,000 square feet to pay their employees at least $10 an hour in wages and $3 an hour in benefits by 2010. Though the city's Alderman passed the bill by a veto-proof margin, Daley managed to twist enough arms to swing four Council votes and avoid an override. As it is, though, he was forced to cast the first veto of his 17 years as mayor, a sign of potential political weakness coming into next year's elections.

Daley, whose likely opponents include Jesse Jackson Jr., looks to be in for a tough run. His wage stance, however sensible, is not popular. He's also been emrboiled (though not himself charged) in an ongoing federal corruption probe run by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (of Valerie Plame fame) that's already brought down two top aides, and led to the conviction of 20 city employees for taking bribes in exchange for transporation contracts. Fitzgerald has also charged that a heroin operation was operating out of a city water-filtration plant, and criticized Chicago as a culture "where people are being scored not on the merits but by whom they know or what clout they have." In the meantime, the Cook County Republican Party is offering a $10,000 bounty in exchange for information that leads to Daley's conviction.

Chicago Follies

The question remains: Will Chicago's gains outlive current Mayor Richard M. Daley, who's now gearing up to run for an unprecedented sixth term?

Even as the city has thrived, Plunktt-ism has continued unabated, which makes it a telling day for Dorothy Eng, the Executive Director of Chicago's Board of Ethics to suddenly resign, after five terms serving with Mayor Daley, according to a piece entitled "Head of paper-tiger ethics board quits" in today's Sun-Times that absolutely drips with contempt for Eng and her office.

New Orleans, City of Low Expectations

The Bayou Buzz notes that, even after their response to Katrina demonstrated the gross incompetence of local public officials, to judge by the elections, the cry for change in New Orleans was “muted” at best. Most of the incumbents for council and mayor were either re-elected or ran well enough to get into runoffs.
The election results underscore the importance of not rebuilding the old New Orleans. While formers residents dispersed to Houston and Atlanta are enjoying the benefits of living in areas with a more vital economy and functional government, those who stayed behind seemed to be captive of their traditionally low expectations. Both of the two top finishers are core members of the local political establishment that did such a brilliant job in preparing the city for Katrina. Despite the incumbent Mayor’s nearly criminal ineptitude in confronting the storm, Nagin, whose campaign for mayor was organized around racial solidarity, led the first round of voting with 38 percent. He won somewhere between five and 10 percent of the white vote. He’ll face Louisiana’s Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, the brother of the current senator Mary Landrieu and son of the last white mayor, “Moon Landrieu” in the runoff. Mitch Landrieu had 28 percent of the vote (with almost a third of his support coming from African-Americans) while third place finisher Ron Forman, who is also white, finished with 17 percent. In the “Big Easy” accountability is hard to come by.

Which Way for Kwame Kilpatrick

The Transformation team, a group of Detroit area civic leaders chosen by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, are calling for sweeping changes, which include privatizing the city’s airport and eliminating the job-killing city income tax. And with Detroit facing the threat of receivership if it is unable to balance its budget, it might seem as though the Mayor, who has talked of major concessions from the city’s unions, was ready to turn a new leaf. But then again, there are the contrary signs and perhaps an alternative route, at least in the short run, to fiscal solvency. Kilpatrick is talking about requiring the city to buy more of its goods and services locally, which though appealing as local politics, will increase the costs borne by the city government. But more importantly, Governor Granholm’s proposal for a 21st Century Jobs Fund - a planned $2 billion mixture of state and private funds – to be used by the state government to create new jobs offers Kilpatrick an alternative path. Kilpatrick, well aware that Granholm is up for reelection this year and caught in a tight race with her GOP challenger, has warned the Governor that she better “engage” with Detroit if she hopes to get the black turnout she needs to return to the statehouse. A state bailout would save Kilpatrick from a bruising and probably politically damaging fight with the city's unions. Needless to say, all this is playing against the backdrop of massive layoffs in the auto industry. A similar effort at state capitalism under former New York Governor Mario Cuomo only served to hasten the decline of upstate New York. That’s probably what’s in store for Michigan if it takes a similar route.

Bankrupt New Orleans

The seven leading candidates in the upcoming (April 22nd) New Orleans Mayoral election were on display last night in a nationally televised debate notable for its lack of substance. The city is on the verge of bankruptcy, but the fiscal crunch was addressed only indirectly. Part of the city’s problem in borrowing money from private lenders, or encouraging the federal government to send more funds, is the widespread understanding that local politics is deeply corrupt. But only one marginal candidate chose to take up the issue. The incumbent Ray Nagin, once known as as Ray Reagan for his ties to local business, was never pressed by the other two top candidates, businessman Ron Forman, a Republican turned Democrat, and Lieutenant Governer Mitch Landrieu, a member of Louisiana’s most prominent political family. All three talked blandly about how New Orleans would return to its former “glory.”

(New Orleans) Government could go broke in a month
Sunday, April 16, 2006
It's not hard to understand why …. banks are skittish about doing business with New Orleans, which needs the money to pay for police, firefighters and other basic functions. Although Mayor Ray Nagin likes to talk about how New Orleans is bouncing back more quickly than he thought it would last fall, his government will run out of money next month without another major infusion of cash….. Though city officials have already slashed spending by a third and laid off 2,400 workers, New Orleans' current population of around 200,000 simply can't pay for the services -- and carry the accumulated debt -- of a city that was more than twice as large before Hurricane Katrina. …
4/17/6 Times Picayune: Mayoral candidates joust in front of national audience