[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

                                 ______


                        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.

                          ____________________