The disparity is especially pronounced in strong-mayor and county-executive forms of local government. Managerial confidential, or “exempt” jobs as they are often known, are the electoral grease on the bureaucratic skids. For obvious reasons, local government HR departments, planners and public-sector unions dream of an apolitical leadership focused on service delivery rather than political maneuvering. But whether we acknowledge it or not, politics is an omnipresent force in local government.
Local officials, here where I work in New York state and elsewhere, get elected to office and appoint their senior deputies through the political party apparatus. Government practitioners must learn to balance the complex web of political agendas with the technical responsibilities of their job. The people tasked with managing and administering the apparatus of government service delivery should have a say in how their communities are governed. We should encourage their healthy participation.
Rather than avoiding politics altogether, career leaders and rank-and-file employees should embrace the electoral process in a legal, ethical and positive way that produces better governance for residents. As far back as 2000, Robert Putnam warned in Bowling Alone of the disastrous effects on democracy of Americans’ declining involvement in civic life. Every public employee has experienced how the hollowing out of our institutions has coarsened our discourse and eroded our mutual trust.
I began as a partisan operative but fortunately found a professional and academic career in public administration. The two should not be treated as mutually exclusive. Politics is a great way to attract young people to the cause of public service. Government employment can channel idealistic passion into a constructive vocation.
Public-sector leaders should be seeking creative ways to encourage institutional affiliation and participation — political and otherwise. Admittedly, this is a thin hair to split. Civic and social engagement outside the workplace enriches the individual, the community and the professional environment. So how can public employees foster a culture that encourages colleagues and subordinates to participate in that most precious freedom without veering into unethical (or illegal) political pressure?
Too often, our hyper-ambitious, agenda-driven elected leaders compel unwanted political activity explicitly or with a wink-and-nod. They repel the competent professionals and attract hangers-on. Or some leaders profess to be impossibly apolitical and leave staff wondering what their rights are. They miss an opportunity for tens of thousands of potential local-government employees, many of whom are naturally predisposed to public service.
Line managers and state- and local-government HR departments should develop strategies to deal up front with the political elephant in the cubicle. Legislative staffers’ obligations will differ widely from those of code enforcement officers, whose obligations will differ widely from those of personnel specialists, and so on.
Leaders need concrete policies. First, they need to establish a dialog that revolves around public-sector employees’ rights to determine how they wish to participate in politics free from the influence of their employer. They should also encourage employees to be active in their communities as engaged, trusted citizens beyond the scope of their job duties. This includes — but is not limited to — electoral activity on behalf of causes and candidates they support as private residents. Of course, it must be emphasized that this cannot impact their official responsibilities.
Local governments can be engines of democratic engagement that perform a vital function far beyond trash cleanup and sewer maintenance. They need not resort to the ward-heeling tactics of Tammany Hall or the regime of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. If they can instill in their employees a sense of civic obligation, local governments will become a force for America’s civic revival.
Derek Smith is a special assistant to the commissioner of parking in Buffalo, N.Y., and a student in the master’s of public administration program at Buffalo State University. His first work in politics was for a member of the British Parliament during the Brexit debate in 2016. Subsequently, he worked as a regional volunteer organizer for the New York state Democratic Party, as a staff assistant to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz and as a senior legislative assistant to the Buffalo Common Council.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
