Institutional Structure and Mayoral Success in Three California Cities

Mullin10.1177/1078087404265391 et al. / CITY CAESARS?URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004 ARTICLE CITY CAESARS? Institutional Structure and Mayoral Success in Three California Cities

MEGAN MULLIN University of California, Berkeley GILLIAN PEELE Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, United Kingdom BRUCE E. CAIN University of California, Berkeley

Recently, voters in many large cities have approved charter reforms that strengthen the power of the executive, suggesting that big city residents and mayors themselves view the formal authority of the office as an important influence on whether a mayor will be successful in solving urban problems. This article employs qualitative data from three California cities to specify how structural characteristics interact with personal factors to facilitate mayoral leadership. The authors find that city structure does not directly determine a mayor’s goals and leadership style, but it does create constraints and opportunities that influence whether a mayor’s personal strategies will succeed.

Keywords: mayors; city structure; city charter; leadership; reform

In the past 20 years, several large California cities have adopted charter reforms that enhanced the formal authority of the mayor’s office. San Jose started the trend in 1986 by increasing the mayor’s powers within the existing council-manager form of government. In 1993, Fresno decided to abandon the council-manager system altogether, and its mayor became the city’s chief

AUTHORS’NOTE: A previous version of this article was presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco. We are grateful to Rachel Goldbrenner for her valuable research assistance on this project. URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW, Vol. 40, No. 1, September 2004 19-43 DOI: 10.1177/1078087404265391 © 2004 Sage Publications

19 20 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004 executive officer. Oakland voters rejected proposals in 1984 and 1996 to shift from a council-manager structure to a system with a stronger mayor, but they reconsidered in 1998 and approved such a measure overwhelmingly. Even San Francisco and Los Angeles, cities that already provided for strong ex- ecutives, opted to strengthen their top posts. And although Modesto, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Riverside so far have maintained their weak- mayor systems, these cities have seen proposals to increase the mayor’s authority. This wave of charter reforms has important consequences for our under- standing of municipal institutions. First, it suggests that the governance needs of cities might vary based on city size. Because the council-manager form of government is still predominant for small and medium-sized Califor- nia cities, the movement toward stronger elected mayors in the largest cities indicates a contrasting perception that big city mayors need concentrated authority to address urban problems. Demands for accountability in some large cities are beginning to outweigh the Progressive ideals of decentralized power and professional management that still dominate in smaller jurisdic- tions. Second, many of these recent charter reforms depart from the simple structural dichotomy of mayor-council and council-manager forms of government. Cities are making incremental changes to formal governing institutions based on local needs and preferences, creating a diverse set of structural arrangements among the state’s largest municipalities. Finally, all of this attention to governmental structure suggests that big city residents and mayors themselves view the formal power granted to the mayor’s office as an important influence on whether a mayor will be successful in solving urban problems. There appears to be growing agreement among political actors within big cities that institutional constraints on the formal authority of the mayor’s office are an important obstacle to getting things done. This article evaluates the implicit claim by contemporary urban reformers that a mayor needs strong formal authority to be effective. We employ qualitative data from three northern California cities to specify how structural and personal factors interact to facilitate mayoral leadership. Mayors vary in their goals and ambitions and in the types of political and management strategies they bring to their jobs. We argue that the formal powers bestowed by the city charter help to determine whether a mayor’s strategies will be effective for achieving his or her policy goals. Governmental institutions do not directly affect a mayor’s policy agenda and leadership style, but they do create constraints and opportunities that influence whether a mayor’s personal strategies will succeed. Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 21

MAYORS AND CITY STRUCTURE

Most existing models of mayoral leadership treat city structure as a con- stant and attempt to identify the personal factors and political conditions that explain mayoral success within a given set of institutional arrangements. Some observers find that limitations on executive authority only detract from mayoral leadership, arguing that to be effective, a mayor must use political skills to overcome structural barriers to the consolidation of power (Pressman 1972; Stein 2002). Svara (1987, 1990) contends that this type of leadership model is not appropriate for mayors in council-manager systems and offers an alternative framework that is based on facilitating action and cooperating with other members of city government rather than controlling them. These models provide different prescriptions for executive success, but they all assume that there is an ideal set of strategies that mayors should employ to be effective in an institutional setting that limits their formal authority. Kotter and Lawrence (1974) make this approach explicit by treat- ing the structure of city government as a contextual variable that primarily operates to limit the range of a mayor’s responsibilities and potential strategies. Ferman (1985) makes a rare departure from this approach in her study of mayoral leadership in Boston and San Francisco. Here, structure is neither static nor exogenous; when a city’s institutions create too great a hindrance on executive flexibility, mayors can attempt to reform the charter and increase the authority of their office. Where leadership models acknowledge the importance of city structure in determining mayoral success, its role remains unspecified. Most analyses attribute mayors’ effectiveness to their political skills and the strategies they use to build and maintain support for their initiatives. The formal institutions of city government make up the context in which a mayor operates, either promoting or hindering a mayor’s flexibility. Only comparative analysis across different governing structures can provide insight about which formal institutions matter the most or the means by which they influence political outcomes. In a study of fiscal policy in Chicago and New York City, Fuchs (1992) is able to trace Chicago’s stronger fiscal position to specific differ- ences between the two cities in mayoral control over the budgetary process. Even among strong-mayor cities, there can be important variation in the powers granted to the executive. 22 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004

RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND DESIGN

In this article, we explore how the formal institutions of the mayoralty affect an individual mayor’s opportunity to demonstrate leadership. By selecting cases based on the structural features of city government, we seek to specify how institutional arrangements influence the relationship between leadership style and political outcomes. A stronger office might have the potential to produce stronger mayors, but within a given structural context, leaders vary in their effectiveness. A mayor whose personal skills fit the requirements of a more constrained office can have greater success than one with extensive formal authority but a style that does not match the office. We depart from the traditional conception of structure as a package of institutions making up a city’s form of government. This conception is reflected in a long string of urban politics scholarship on reform structures and election systems adopted by cities early in the twentieth century. Schol- ars have sought to explain the adoption and persistence of reform institutions (Banfield and Wilson 1963; Wolfinger and Field 1966; Bridges 1997) and the effects on city spending (Lineberry and Fowler 1967; Morgan and Pelissero 1980) and a variety of other policy outcomes. In general, this literature has treated the organization of large cities as a dichotomous variable—citieshave either a mayor-council or a council-manager system.1 However, we see many cities departing from the pure mayor-council and council-manager models by making incremental adjustments that change the mayor’s relationship to the council and redistribute authority over the budget, contracts, and appointments (DeSantis and Renner 2002; Frederickson, Johnson, and Wood 2004). The effect of many of these reforms is to expand the flexibility of a mayor in employing leadership and management strategies even as the overall governmental structure remains unchanged. Mayors operating in cities with the same form of government may have very different tools and powers available to them. We believe that the traditional form of government dichotomy over- simplifies the institutional complexity of contemporary American cities, and we are interested in examining the consequences of individual structural elements on mayoral leadership. We argue that institutional arrangements have indirect influence on mayoral effectiveness by conditioning the relationship between personal leadership style and outcomes. In other words, the structure in which a mayor operates helps to determine the odds of success for a given set of political strategies. The formal rules setting the balance of power among city officials create a set of opportunities and constraints for mayors not just by defining their authority and jurisdiction but also by influencing how other city officials and the public respond to mayoral activities. A city’s institutional struc- Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 23 ture creates expectations for mayoral behavior and sets incentives for other political actors who are pursuing their own electoral or policy goals. These expectations and incentives constrain a mayor’s flexibility beyond any formal rules and affect how others respond to the actions of the executive. This study examines mayoral leadership in three northern California cities—Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose—during the 1980s and 1990s. The three case sites provide an excellent opportunity for exploring how municipal institutions affect the exercise of mayoral power. All three cities have amended their charters within the past 20 years to enhance mayoral power, two staying within the existing form of government and one changing from a council-manager to a hybrid system that involves both a strong mayor and a powerful city manager. A summary of these reforms for the structural conditions that interest us appears in Table 1. We draw comparisons both across cities and over time to assess the effects of variation in executive authority, focusing on the tenures of 10 mayors—3 each in Oakland and San Jose and 4 in San Francisco. Although the cities are by no means identical, their proximity to one another and location in the San Francisco Bay Area allow us to control for many aspects of political culture that otherwise might confound our analysis. All three cities are racially and ethnically diverse, with nonpartisan city elections but voter registration that is overwhelmingly Democratic and a strong tradition of neighborhood politics. Moreover, the cities all limit mayors to serving two terms. Mayoral term limits have been in place in San Francisco and San Jose since the mid-twentieth century and were adopted in Oakland in 1998 as one element of a broader charter reform. Our primary data consist of semistructured, open-ended interviews con- ducted in April 2001 with former mayors and members of their staffs, current and former city administrators and city council members, political consul- tants, and journalists covering politics in the three cities. To obtain honest responses from individuals who maintain active political careers, we have protected the anonymity of all interviewees other than mayors commenting on their own experiences. In addition, we use newspaper accounts and exam- ination of charters to see how changes in formal institutions have affected the success of individual mayors in employing leadership strategies. The remainder of the article proceeds as follows. The next section describes the political context in the three case cities and their structural arrangements before and after recent charter reforms. Then we examine how specific institutional features affect the success of different mayoral strategies. We focus on three categories of institutional factors: the mayor’s relationship to the council, budgetary authority, and appointment authority.We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for institutional design in the modern large city. 24 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004

TABLE 1: Structural Reforms in Case Cities

Before Reforms After Reforms

Council vote and veto Oakland Yes; No No, except in council tie; No San Francisco No; Yes No change San Jose Yes; No No change Budget authority Oakland Manager prepared budget, and Mayor directs manager, who mayor presented it to council prepares budget. Mayor pres- for approval. ents it to council for approval. San Francisco Mayor prepared and submitted Board can increase budget budget to board for approval. items but not overall spend- Board could delete budget ing. Mayor can veto expendi- items but had no authority to tures added by board and has initiate programs or increase final authority over commis- spending items. Commis- sion-approved department sions prepared department budgets. budgets within mayor’s guidelines. San Jose Manager prepared budget and Mayor delivers budget message submitted it to council for with specific recommenda- approval. tions and council holds public hearings before manager submits budget to council for approval. Appointment authority Oakland Council appointed and removed Mayor appoints manager, sub- manager. Manager appointed ject to council approval, and all department heads. may remove manager without council approval. San Francisco Mayor appointed chief adminis- Mayor appoints and may trative officer, who served remove the city administra- 10-year term and could be tor. Mayor appoints depart- removed only for miscon- ment heads from a list of duct. Commissions appointed finalists selected by commis- department heads. Mayor sions. Mayor may recom- appointed commissioners. mend department head removal and commissions must act within 30 days. Board may reject mayor’s commission appointments with a two-thirds vote. San Jose Mayor had vote on council to Mayor nominates manager can- appoint and remove manager. didates and has vote on coun- Manager appointed all cil to approve appointment. department heads. Council may veto manager’s selection of department heads. Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 25

CASE BACKGROUND

Prior to its charter change, power in San Francisco was fragmented within a cumbersome form of government. It was, in the words of a leading chroni- cler of the city, a unique system that “melded elements of strong mayor, city manager, and commission systems of government into a strange hybrid” (DeLeon 1992, 21). The 1932 charter that established the consolidated city/ county provided for a form of government that might be defined as mayor- council—the mayor did not sit on the board of supervisors2 and the board did not appoint a city manager to carry out its policies—but also placed substantial constraints on mayoral authority. The mayor appointed a chief administrative officer (CAO) to direct most of the city’s departments, and only a recall or a two-thirds vote of the board could remove the CAO. The mayor had appointment, budgetary, and veto powers but no administrative authority over departments under the CAO’s supervision. The authority of city commissions to hire department heads and approve department budgets further limited the mayor’s sphere of influence. As a deputy to one former mayor told us, for the mayor of San Francisco, “the buck stops at your office, yet the power was diffused throughout the city.” This fragmented institutional framework frustrated mayors attempting to carry out a policy agenda in a city where “everyone is a minority” and “hyperpluralism reigns” (DeLeon 1992, 13). The citizen initiative process in San Francisco produced many incremental charter changes that made governing arrangements even more complex. In 1980, after the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk by former supervisor Dan White, voters approved a return to at-large elections but rejected an effort to update and revise the charter. Fifteen years later, just as longtime State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown was returning to San Francisco to assume the mayoralty, voters approved a new charter that strengthened both the mayor and the board of supervisors.3 The charter increased the mayor’s authority over city administration, allowing the mayor to revise commission- approved department budgets, reallocate responsibilities among departments, and choose department heads from a list of finalists assembled by the commissions. Proposition E replaced the CAO with a city administrator who would have a more limited jurisdiction, effectively giving the mayor responsibility for departments such as public works that previously had been outside of executive control. The new charter also gave the board more control over fiscal decisions and allowed the board to veto the mayor’s commission appointments with a two-thirds vote. Framed as an effort to make city government more efficient and accountable, the charter reform centralized 26 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004 power by shifting budgetary and administrative authority from unelected managers to the mayor and the board. Like in San Francisco, charter reform in San Jose increased the power of both mayor and council within the existing form of government. As the city experienced rapid growth in the latter half of the twentieth century, power began to shift from the “old guard” of longtime residents, developers, and the chamber of commerce to new residents who organized into neighborhood and homeowner groups. San Jose’s progrowth consensus collapsed as the costs of development became apparent and conflicts emerged among the city’s ethnic groups. In response to these new challenges came proposals to strengthen the office of the mayor, traditionally a weak position in this sun- belt reform city. A charter revision in the 1960s provided for the direct election of the mayor, and in 1972 a council-appointed charter review commission recommended adopting a strong-mayor system. The council placed the proposal on the ballot but later removed it in response to pressure from former mayors and the city’s political establishment (Christensen 1997). Calls for strengthening the top executive emerged again in 1985 in response to the city’s loss of $60 million in bad bond investments. City bureaucrats acting in violation of council policy had caused the financial crisis, but the public looked to the mayor to solve the problem. As then-Mayor Tom McEnery (1983-1991) recalls, “I decided then that if I was going to have all the responsibility, then I was going to have the power. That’s only fair” (interview, April 10, 2001).4 The reform that passed gave mayors a new role in preparing the budget, allowing them to write a statement of fiscal priorities before the manager submits the final budget to the council for approval. In addition, the 1985 charter amendment gave the mayor the ability to nominate candidates for the city manager position and created an office of public information under the executive, enhancing the mayor’s role as spokesperson for the city. Because Measure J also included provisions that strengthened the council, most importantly in selecting department heads, the effect of the reforms was to enhance the mayor’s authority primarily relative to the city manager, who continued to direct city administration. The charter amendments in San Francisco and San Jose reflected a shift in emphasis from the Progressive ideal of professional management to contemporary demands for electoral accountability. These reforms had important consequences for administration and governance in the two cities, but they seem modest when compared to the charter revision that Oakland adopted in 1998. Until its charter reform, Oakland had operated under a council- manager form of government in which the directly elected mayor possessed only one of five council votes that were needed to provide any direction to the city manager. Bypassing the manager was not an option; under the noninter- Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 27 ference clause of Oakland’s charter, the mayor and other council members were legally barred from giving orders to city staff under the supervision of the city manager. The city’s structure had long frustrated Oakland mayors, who felt that limitations on the authority of the office constrained their ability to carry out a policy agenda or even improve service delivery. Oakland has been troubled in recent decades by crime, financial mismanagement, and slow recovery from an economic recession, and the city’s mayors felt that they lacked the formal powers they needed to set a new direction. Mayor Elihu Harris (1991-1999) tried to secure reforms through the ambitious Measure F in 1996, which would have eliminated the city manager position and shifted all of its responsibilities to the mayor.5 Oakland voters rejected the measure, but in 1998 they overwhelmingly approved another charter change proposal, Measure X, which was written by Mayor-Elect Jerry Brown (1998-present). As in San Francisco, the entrance of a major political figure—in this case, a former governor—into local politics seemed to boost support for strengthening the mayor’s office.6 Indeed, Measure X was tailor-made for Brown because it would expire after six years if voters did not renew it. This reform moved Oakland away from the council-manager system without fully embracing the strong-mayor structure envisioned in Measure F. It created what Frederickson, Johnson, and Wood (2004) call a “conciliated city,” one that combines structural elements from both of the classic forms of government. Measure X strengthened the mayor simply by placing the city manager under direct executive control. The mayor received authority to appoint the manager, subject to confirmation by the council, and to remove the manager without council approval. The city manager retained all the responsibilities of the office but would serve at the pleasure of the mayor. The ballot measure also removed the noninterference prohibition on the mayor, allowing the mayor to direct all city employees. The mayor no longer sits on the city council, but he has the authority to break tie votes. From this brief review of recent charter reforms in three Bay Area cities, it is apparent that one cannot easily infer a mayor’s formal authority from the city’s form of government. City structure is made up of specific rules and pro- cesses that affect the balance of powers among the mayor, council, and city manager. Institutions governing budget preparation and approval, the direction of city departments, control over appointments, and management of information all affect the ease with which a mayor can implement a policy initiative or improve the delivery of city services. If we want to understand how a city’s structural environment affects the exercise of mayoral leadership, we must focus attention on individual elements of city design. 28 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004

INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTS ON MAYORAL LEADERSHIP

COUNCIL VOTE AND VETO

One of the primary factors that analysts have used to distinguish mayor- council from council-manager governments is whether the mayor sits on the council and casts votes along with other council members. This structural condition determines whether there is a separation of powers in the local political system or, in other words, if there is a clear division between the executive and legislative functions. It also does much to shape expectations about the mayor’s role. Mayors who sit on the council are fundamentally legislators. They must maintain the support of the council to achieve their goals. At the same time, other political actors and the public perceive the mayor as the symbolic head of government and hold the mayor responsible for city policies and programs. The legislative and executive roles are not necessarily compatible, and in fact they may conflict when the council will not allow a mayor to exercise leadership that the public demands. The performance expectations for a legislator and an executive are quite different, and mayors who have served previously as council members or state legislators can have a difficult time adjusting their strategies. A legislator is rewarded for designing good policy, but an executive can be punished for spending too much time on policy design at the cost of communicat- ing with voters and overseeing policy implementation. San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos (1988-1992) found this out when he drew criticism for the time he spent crafting a plan to address homelessness.7 Homelessness was a core issue on which Agnos built his electoral coalition, and there was wide consensus that it should be a top city priority (Roberts and Yoachum 1991). Agnos’s strategy for addressing the homeless crisis was to work closely with agency personnel and policy experts to design a solution, just as he would have done in his previous position as a state legislator. Several interviewees told us that Agnos spent much of his time focusing on a single issue and operating outside of the public view, leading to complaints that the mayor was inaccessible and inattentive to other city issues. A member of his administration recalls,

I kept telling him, “Get your butt out in the coffee shops. Schmooze. Let people see you. Be the mayor, that’s part of what they want in this city.” Except he’s locked up behind the door with the social services people designing his homeless plan. Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 29

A mayor who sits on the council might be rewarded by other council members for taking the lead on a policy issue, but those incentives do not operate when the mayor leads an independent executive branch. Expectations of the public and other political actors also can conflict with the natural incentive for a legislator to act as a swing voter who casts the deciding vote on any issue. The swing vote strategy was used by Elihu Harris, who had served as a state legislator and legislative staff member before becoming mayor in Oakland. A member of the council during Harris’s mayoralty explains why this strategy was not successful, given the expectationsof those surrounding Harris:

The mayor’s position should be clear when any issue comes up. The mayor should be staking out, sort of pushing the boundary and then trimming back to compromise with the legislative body or whoever the compromises are with. But the mayor should be clear....Anobserver should be walking into the council meeting saying, “Did the mayor get the votes for what he or she wants?” In- stead with Elihu, it was, “Where’s the mayor on this issue?” Because he was still operating in the legislative mode, where you get the most from holding your cards for as long as you can, and then everyone has to bid to you in order to fill out their hand. . . . After a while everybody knows you can’t count on the mayor for a vote so the pledge of a vote becomes useless.

Harris saw himself as a legislator and attempted to secure informal power by acting as the swing vote on the council. Other council members perceived his role differently and expected the mayor to guide decision making. When Harris failed to provide leadership, the council acted without him. Mayors who do not sit on the council more clearly take on an executive role. They have more flexibility to act in opposition to the council and establish a separate base of power. Measure X in Oakland removed the mayor from the council, allowing Jerry Brown to avoid the role conflict that troubled Harris. Council members told us that Brown has taken pains to position himself apart from the council, rarely attending meetings and even delivering the annual State of the City address to business leaders rather than to the council, the traditional audience for the speech. He has pursued his own policy agenda, appealing to the public through the media and ballot measures and reaching out to state and federal government to circumvent council approval. Brown has drawn criticism for acting too independently (see, for example, Burt and Counts 2003), but Oakland’s current institutional arrangement sep- arating the mayor from the legislative body allows him to do so. Under the city’s previous structure, the political costs would have been much higher. The mayor’s relationship to the council also can affect the success of the mayor’s public strategies. Mayors who are not on the council can shift blame 30 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004 for unpopular decisions and unsuccessful programs. The council is unlikely to be sufficiently unified and to receive enough press attention to respond effectively. Mayors might even position themselves in opposition to the council, going public and urging city residents to pressure council members to support the mayor’s position. Going public requires a certain level of personal popularity, and it depends on the mayor’s ability to win press attention. Jerry Brown has been successful in igniting controversy in order to produce publicity. One observer describes his approach:

If you want to get things done, you want to make sure you’ve covered your bases and talked to the key legislators. If your goal, however, is your image, then can you be a reformer—and will the public know you’re reforming anything—if nobody is screaming? Jerry believes . . . you can do good things as a reformer, but you’ve got to have the public, and you can’t have the public un- less you’ve stepped on somebody’s toes. Because if you don’t step on somebody’s toes, the press isn’t going to report it.

The going public strategy may not always deliver support from the council, but in the context of a separated system it strengthens the mayor’s ability to set the terms of debate. As Kernell (1986) has described in the presidential arena, it also risks jeopardizing relationships with council members and other officials who resent it when the mayor disregards them and shifts legislative disputes into the public arena. Consequently, going public is not likely to be successful for a mayor who sits on the council and must continue to work with other council members. Mayors who have a council vote are less able to escape blame for an unpopular action, because they lead a unitary government. They cannot draw a distinction between themselves and the legislative body. Harris failed in his repeated attempts to deny responsibility for a series of botched programs in Oakland, including costly and mismanaged deals related to the Raiders football team and a downtown ice rink (DelVecchio 1997). Moreover, as leaders of the council, mayors absorb most of the criticism for council actions. San Jose residents and even the national press blamed Mayor Ron Gonzales (1999-present) for joining the council majority against a popular proposal to provide health insurance to children in June 2000 (Van Slambrouck 2000).8 Six months later, the mayor and council reversed their stance and supported the program. Although a formal position apart from the council makes it easier to shift blame, it can pose a greater obstacle to sustaining a working majority on the council in support of a legislative agenda. In none of these one-party cities can a mayor count on simple party loyalty to garner council allies, and these highly diverse and pluralistic contexts allow for few enduring coalitions Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 31 within the political community. Consequently, a mayor must establish individual relationships with council members to earn their support, a much easier task when the mayor serves on the legislative body. In San Jose, mayors generally have relied on stable council majorities. The executive must invest some effort to maintain good personal relationships with other council members, but there is a tendency in that city for council members to look to the mayor for leadership. Throughout most of his tenure, Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson (1977-1991) similarly was able to sustain a council majority (DelVecchio 1998).9 His successor Elihu Harris, in contrast, did not have a personal style that suited the city’s unitary system. Our interviewees agreed that Harris was unable to build relationships on the council that would allow him to lead effectively. In contrast, a separated system creates the possibility of competition and conflict between the two branches. The council is more likely to band together in opposition to the mayor if the mayor has independent executive authority. San Francisco mayors traditionally have struggled to win and maintain legislative support, regardless of how well their goals correspond with the board’s. Opposition to Mayor Frank Jordan (1992-1996) seemed to unite the board of supervisors, who took to “legislating over him,” according to one observer.10 A rallying point for the 2000 supervisorial elections was to build a board majority that would balance the power of Mayor Willie Brown’s (1995-2003) administration (Epstein 2000). Mayors can use personal and political skills to counter the tendency of an independent council to position itself against them, however. Several interviewees noted that San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein (1978-1988) was highly attentive to the personal needs of those around her, which paid substantial dividends in terms of board support for her agenda.11 Art Agnos, her successor, by comparison neglected these relationships; one of his supporters remembers,

Feinstein . . . while being a tough person ...waskind of genteel and rather re- served. Then you get this Greek guy coming in as mayor who didn’t try to co- opt people . . . and he sometimes wasn’t as diplomatic as he could have been in trying to bring people along.

As a consequence of his abrasive style, Agnos found his relationships with many board members strained, despite agreement on a progressive policy agenda (Keane 1991). The Feinstein case demonstrates that it is not impossi- ble for a mayor in a separated system to rely on a council majority, but that strategy is more difficult than for mayors who serve as council leaders. Where mayors do not sit on the council, another important element defining the relationship between the executive and legislative branches is whether 32 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004 the mayor has veto authority over council decisions. The veto serves to amplify many of the conditioning effects described above. Independent exec- utives are even more likely to be successful casting themselves as lone cru- saders against the council and appealing directly to the public for support when they have the power to reject an unpopular council action. A high- profile veto can be very effective as an assertion of authority and independ- ence, thereby strengthening the mayor’s negotiating position. Relying on the veto is risky, however, because with a veto override, council members can embarrass the mayor and draw public attention to themselves. Consequently, mayors with veto power are less likely to be successful in building and maintaining a council majority. Members of the minority have an incentive to cast themselves in opposition to the mayor and may seek out opportunities to draw a veto they can override or use in an electoral strategy to break up the mayor’s majority. In his first term, Willie Brown had a veto-proof majorityon the board of supervisors, allowing him to push through a business-friendly, prodevelopment agenda. Brown relied on his majority rather than seek compromise with tenant and homeless advocates, neighborhood groups, environ- mentalists, and others who opposed his policies. In the 2000 election, these activists took advantage of the transition to district elections and worked to elect a board dominated by Brown opponents. Brown’s new opponents on the board made him pay for his earlier strategy by overriding the mayor’s vetoes on controversial housing legislation. Even if a mayor has enough votes on the council to ensure that vetoes will stand, relying on the veto can appear to the public as a sign of weakness. For- mer San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer (1991-1999) says that she did not suffer for the lack of veto power: If there was something she “needed to kill,” she and her staff “would have done the work earlier and it would never have got- ten to the council” (interview, April 18, 2001).12 Working personally with the council to build support for the mayor’s position seems to be a more effective strategy when the council does not feel threatened by the veto pen.

BUDGET AUTHORITY

The character of the charter reforms in our three case cities varies widely, but all involved extension of the mayor’s authority over the budget. This shared feature of reform points to the importance of the budget in determining the balance of power among the mayor, the council, and the city manager. Our interviews indicate that the nature and extent of a mayor’s budgetary power affects the success of virtually every political strategy, because it defines relationships between the actors in city politics and sets the stage for their interactions. A mayor without explicit budget authority can guide the Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 33 council in setting a vision for the city’s spending priorities, but it is direct control over line items that allows the mayor to set direction for programs and employ political strategies to win support. In the pure council-manager model, the mayor has no independent authority over the city budget. The city manager prepares a budget and presents it to the council for approval; the mayor’s vote on the budget is equal to that of other council members. The manager has no structural incentive to be more responsive to the mayor than to any other council member. By the time the budget document reaches the council, it is difficult to act collectively to make more than minor adjustments. This was the case in Oakland and San Jose prior to recent reforms. Mayors who served under the previous arrangements in these cities told us that the lack of budget authority was the most important obstacle to exercising leadership. In San Jose, even though Tom McEnery was successful in carrying out much of his agenda through personal persua- sion and popularity, his frustration with the budget process prompted him to lead the campaign to strengthen the mayor’s office (interview, April 10, 2001). With modestly stronger budget authority, his successor was able to use her personal negotiation skills to great effect and exercise important influence over individual programs. Susan Hammer declares, “It’s the mayor who sets the agenda for the city, every single year, through the budget” (interview, April 18, 2001). The city manager still prepares the budget and submits it to the council, but the manager must respond to the mayor’s budget message, which can include specific programmatic recommendations. In addition to allowing more effective agenda setting, a mayor’s ability to submit the initial budget proposal shifts the focus of other council members from the city manager to the mayor. One former Oakland council member recalls that before the charter change, the city manager would use the budget document to “distribute goodies to the council members when it was election time or . . . withhold his goodies to keep his votes together.” This member perceived that the manager won council support for his administrative priorities in exchange for delivering projects and services to members’districts. Lack- ing budget authority, the mayor had no “goodies” to distribute. When mayors oversee preparation of the budget document, they can use budget items to secure compromises between different elements of the government and between factions within it. Mayors without budgetary power can employ similar bartering and brokerage strategies using alternative resources such as appointments, campaign endorsements, and access to information, but without control of the checkbook, these strategies will be less effective. Mayoral budget authority also allows the mayor to exercise more influence over city administration. If the mayor designs the budget, the manager and department heads must appeal to the mayor to incorporate their adminis- 34 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004 trative priorities. Not only do mayors get to influence the distribution of resources among departments, but they also win some leverage that they can use to ensure compliance with their goals. As a member of Feinstein’s administration recalls, “Department heads are very conscious of where the dollars come from.” Without making explicit threats, Feinstein was able to use budgetary incentives as she sought cooperation from departments in her effortto improve the delivery of city services. Finally, budget powers increase a mayor’s flexibility in using electoral strategies to maintain support. Mayors can use budget items to curry favor among interest groups and reward members of their electoral coalition. Alternatively, they may cut items to punish interest groups or to create a public image as a reformer. Mayors who have authority over negotiating contracts are even more likely to have success in using a distributive strategyto secure the backing of groups. The generous contracts that Willie Brown negotiated with San Francisco municipal employees’ unions were an important factor in his ability to win their support for his reelection (Coile 1999). In lean economic times, mayors can win over the public by standing firm against labor demands.

APPOINTMENT AUTHORITY

The third structural feature we compared across cities and over time is the allocation of authority to appoint and retain the city manager, department heads, and members of city commissions. The extent to which a mayor can influence the selection of personnel does much to determine how city staff will respond to different management strategies and also affects whether a mayor will be successful in using administrative strategies to achieve political goals. When the council selects and oversees the city manager, the manager has an opportunity to build a power base that rivals the mayor’s. It is unethical for city managers to exchange public resources for council support, but informally, managers may take on a leadership role that draws attention away from the executive. A mayor or council member who is dissatisfied with the manager’s performance must build a council majority to dismiss the manager. This can pose a collective action problem in that council members will not want to jeopardize their relationship with the manager by supporting dis- missal if they are not fully confident that there is majority support for the decision. This arrangement can limit the effectiveness of some potential mayoral leadership strategies. Mayors may not be able to direct city staff or obtain resources for bartering with other political actors. Moreover, a city manager Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 35 can choose to marginalize the mayor by not sharing information about problems and opportunities. As Hammer describes, “Knowledge is power and for years in San Jose the city manager ran the show and there was not a lot of information sharing” (interview, April 18, 2001). In the worst case, council oversight of the city manager can threaten a mayor’s ability to maintain an electoral coalition, because without cooperation from city departments, the mayor might not be able to deliver on campaign promises and respond to weaknesses in service delivery. Of course, most city managers are professionals who seek to cooperate with elected officials.13 Still, rules about appointment help direct the attention of city managers to some elected officials over others. After mayors in San Jose received authority to nominate city manager candidates, the press began to treat new managers as mayoral appointees (Gaura 1999; San Jose Mercury News 1999). This makes it easier for mayors to pursue a strategy of teamwork with the city manager, as Ron Gonzales has done. Our interviewees told us that Gonzales builds political support for a given proposal while the manager directs implementation. They suggest that the manager’s separate constituency is essential for maintaining this functional division of powers; if the mayor attempted to employ strong executive strategies to win control of city administration, the council would rise to the manager’s defense. Such a teamwork strategy is likely to be less effective when the mayor has no influence over city manager selection. In Oakland before the Measure X reforms, Mayors Wilson and Harris found that their ability to exercise leadership was limited by their lack of influence over the person responsible for directing the city’s departments and staff. A member of Wilson’s administration recalls that when the mayor took office, “Lionel Wilson was confronted with a city manager who said, ‘Well, I don’t need to talk to you. Make an appointment. Get in line.’ ” The mayor “ultimately was just a city council person,” as one city official describes. When Harris entered office, he struggled initially to wrest some authority from the manager, but when those efforts were unsuccessful, he grew resigned that without significant expan- sion of the mayor’s office, the manager would dominate the city’s political system (interview, April 4, 2001). Harris eventually placed a sign on his desk reading, “The buck doesn’t stop here. See the city manager” (San Francisco Chronicle 1998). Wilson and Harris found that the council’s oversight of the city manager created structural constraints that were inconsistent with the public’s expec- tation that the mayor was in charge. The public called on mayors to take the lead in solving city problems, but bold strategies met resistance from council members and city staff who resented mayoral efforts to concentrate power through informal means. The Measure X reforms made no changes to the 36 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004 manager’s responsibilities and authority, but the manager’s position became answerable to the mayor rather than the council. The system restructured the focus of city staff and council members such that they more readily would accept strong executive strategies. Jerry Brown maintained a working partnership with City Manager Robert Bobb for the first four years of his administration, even using Bobb’s staff rather than maintaining his own. This reflected a mayoral strategy to take advantage of Bobb’s expertise and delegate administrative management, in contrast with San Jose, where the mayor- manager partnership is perhaps the only way that Gonzales can effectively exercise leadership within the current structure. A mayor who directly leads a city’s administration must have strong management skills to compensate for the absence of a professional manager. Agnos attempted to coordinate management of San Francisco’s departments with a presidential-style cabinet system. He hired seven deputy mayors, each covering a specific policy area, to serve as advisers, strategic planners, and representatives to the public. Agnos hoped that the deputy system would pro- mote cooperation and increase public participation in city decision making, but community groups and the media soon grew frustrated with the deputies’ lack of formal authority over city departments, and department heads resented the extra layer of bureaucracy. The cabinet became a political problem when Agnos’s critics and the press attacked the titles and salaries of the deputy mayors (Bodovitz 1989). Thus, Agnos’s management strategy created a communications problem, because residents expected the mayor to act as the public face of his administration:

I appointed the most diverse group of people, coming from every neighborhood in the city, and I expected them to be my links to the neighborhood. But what I learned is, that’s not a substitute for me. The mayor is the person, and there cannot be any surrogates over a sustained period. (Interview, April 20, 2001)

San Franciscans were not accustomed to professional managers acting as a link between the elected executive and city administration, and Agnos’s cabinet experiment was a failure. Even if mayors lack direct oversight over the city bureaucracy, they can exert some influence if they are responsible for selecting department heads. In San Francisco, Proposition E removed limitations on executive authority over personnel management by giving the mayor the power to appoint department heads and effectively eliminating the chief administrative officer position. As a result, Willie Brown was able to pursue political goals through his management of city administration. Brown used his appointment author- Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 37 ity to operate a patronage system that rewarded political allies and punished his enemies, in many cases circumventing civil service constraints by ap- pointing “special assistants.” Brown’s political approach to management created a loyal staff structure with a unified message and agenda, but critics charged that the inexperience of many of his top managers, combined with Brown’s lack of interest in directing the activities of his departments, created an absence of leadership in much of the city’s administration (Williams and Finnie 2001). Brown could pursue this strategy only in the context of structural arrangements like San Francisco’s that allow extensive mayoral input over appointments, but even there the charges of corruption against Brown produced an electoral backlash against him. By using appointments as a reward for political loyalty, Brown had more success than his predecessors in maintaining the adherence of those he selected for San Francisco’s powerful commissions. In contrast, Frank Jordan’s political inexperience caused him to appoint commissioners who had no loyalty to the mayor personally, and frequently they would vote against Jordan on important city policies (Wildermuth 1999). Demands for loyalty from appointees can go too far: Agnos’s insistence on his appointees’ allegiance estranged him from his core constituency (Roberts 1991). Prop- erly managed, however, appointment authority is an important tool for mayors to use in pursuing electoral and policy goals. Jerry Brown in Oakland has even used appointments to co-opt and silence his opposition, according to our interviewees. In San Jose, Ron Gonzales attempted to change the city’s approach to development decisions by replacing members of the planning commission. Gonzales failed to win the support of a majority of his fellow council members, however, so the commission stayed intact. Gonzales suffered a public defeat and had to pursue alternative strategies for facilitating development (Levey and Witt 2000). Once again, we see that the city’s institutional arrangements conditioned mayoral success.

CONCLUSION

The scope of the mayoralty in the modern American city is growing in- creasingly uncertain. Models of mayoral leadership generally assume a fixed institutional framework, but many cities are making incremental changes to their governing arrangements to combine the accountability of a strong- mayor system with the professional management features associated with reform cities (Frederickson, Johnson, and Wood 2004). The formal power of the mayoralty varies widely across these “adapted” cities, as do public expectations about the role of the executive. This diversity in city structures chal- 38 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004 lenges any simple prescription for mayoral success. Success in office willbe determined largely by how well a mayor’s personal style matches his or her institutional and political context. As city structure becomes more malleable, cities may face a trade-off between institutional stability and the performance of any individual mayor. If leadership depends on compatibility between personal and structural factors, and passing a charter amendment is no more difficult than winning an election, then incoming mayors may seek to design an office that suits their governing style. Jerry Brown crafted reforms that allowed him to exercise his ambitious vision but did not require his involvement in implementation. Brown has relied too heavily on formal authority, however, and has failed to invest the personal resources that are necessary to maintain support within any structural context. After working closely with City Manager Robert Bobb throughout his first term, Brown fired Bobb in July 2003. The two dis- agreed over plans for downtown development, and moreover, Brown was uncomfortable with the separate base of power that Bobb had established. Brown thought that Bobb was acting too independently in negotiating with council members (Matier and Ross 2003) and department heads (Johnson 2003). Although Measure X clearly gave Brown the authority to fire Bobb, Brown drew extensive criticism from political insiders and the press for the move, particularly for acting without warning the council (Johnson 2003; Matier and Ross 2003; Oakland Tribune 2003). Council members also continue to complain that the mayor is inaccessible and stretches the boundaries of his authority. It is clear in all of our cases that those who propose charter reform and city residents who vote on the proposals consider mayors’ behavior in previous systems when designing new institutions. Moreover, cities are willing to further amend their charters in response to a mayor’s performance. San Francis- cans placed constraints on the mayor’s appointment power when they perceived that Willie Brown was operating a patronage system. In Oakland, a citizens committee appointed by Brown and the city council held public hearings to consider structural issues after voters rejected a proposal to renew the provisions of Measure X in the November 2002 election. The committee developed a new proposal that maintains the mayor’s strengthened position but responds to critics’ charges that Brown is inaccessible and inattentive to administrative issues. The proposal requires the mayor to hold four public meetings per year and gives the council authority to make committee appointments when the mayor fails to act. In addition, it removes the ambiguity remaining in Oakland’s charter by changing the city manager’s title to city administrator and giving the mayor authority to hire and fire department heads. Voters approved the proposal in March 2004. Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 39

If structural design and personal leadership skills operate together to produce a successful mayoralty, cities must consider how to find the match that best suits their needs. One option is to pursue a course like San Francisco’s and continually tinker with governing arrangements in response to current political conditions. The alternative is a model more like San Jose. The city adopted a fairly modest reform in response to a crisis, but otherwise San Jose has maintained a mayoral office with limited powers and elected leaders whose leadership strategies thrive under those conditions. Constraints on the office can limit the effectiveness of some occupants, but what is lost in any single mayoralty may be gained through institutional stability. In the attempt to balance accountability and effectiveness, cities have the choice of changing mayors or changing structures.

NOTES

1. The commission and town meeting forms of government exist almost entirely in small municipalities. 2. San Francisco is a consolidated city and county, so the county board of supervisors serves also as the city council. 3. Prior to being elected as San Francisco’s first Black mayor, Willie Brown served 31 years in the state assembly, including 15 years as Speaker. Brown enjoyed early popularity as mayor based on his statewide profile and stylish appearance, and he took office just as the city was recovering from a long economic downturn. The mayor was able to consolidate power based on his strengthened position under the new charter and the chance opportunity to fill several vacan- cies on the board of supervisors. After 3 years, however, Brown’s approval ratings plummeted because of his failure to make progress on public transportation and homelessness problems (Lewis 1998). In addition, his prodevelopment agenda and machine-style politics drew criticism from the city’s progressive community, who won a majority on the board in the 2000 election. Over the next 4 years, voters approved several board-sponsored measures to place constraints on the mayor’s power. Brown battled with a hostile board throughout his second term. 4. A downtown property owner who came from an established San Jose political family, Tom McEnery was appointed to fill a council vacancy in 1978. Two years later, he was elected to represent central San Jose in the city’s first district elections. McEnery bridged the city’s old and new political establishments by promoting downtown development and transit-oriented housing while seeking to control outward sprawl. His broad electoral coalition translated into a stable majority of allies on the council, and he exercised unusual influence within the city’s weak- mayor context (Christensen 1997). He oversaw the redevelopment of San Jose’s downtown area, and he was successful in attracting high-tech jobs and investment to the city. McEnery’s popularity helped win support for the 1985 charter reform that increased the authority of the mayor and council over the city manager. 5. Elihu Harris served in the state assembly for 12 years prior to being elected mayor. As mayor, Harris oversaw a troubled period in which Oakland faced a crime epidemic, a devastating fire, failing schools, and mismanaged financial deals. Harris promoted downtown revitalization and succeeded in attracting investment to Oakland. In other areas, however, he failed to mobilize enough support to carry out his initiatives. Proposals to place the struggling port under city 40 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / September 2004 control, impose a youth curfew, and strengthen the authority of the mayor’s office all failed to pass, and Harris drew criticism for being too willing to concede to his opposition (DelVecchio 1997). Harris enjoyed council support during his first term, but that support declined over time, and by the end of his tenure, he had few allies on the council. 6. The son of a popular California governor, Jerry Brown served two terms as governor himself and ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate and the Democratic presidential nomination before assuming the Oakland mayoralty. Less than a month after winning a landslide victory over 10 other candidates, Brown circulated a petition to place his charter reform proposal on the ballot, and the measure passed before he took office. Brown arrived at a positive moment in Oakland’s recent history: Job creation and housing construction were on the rise, the city had largely re- paired itself after the 1989 earthquake and 1991 fire, and the murder rate was at its lowest level in 25 years (La Ganga 1999). He has made progress on his goal to attract 10,000 new residents to the central business district but has had less success in his other campaign pledges to cut crime, improve the city’s schools, and support the arts. Public support for Brown has declined over his tenure but remained above 50% in February 2004 (Johnson 2004). 7. A former social worker, Art Agnos served as a state assembly member before occupying the mayoralty for a single term. Agnos won election overwhelmingly, benefiting from a powerful neighborhood precinct operation and a progressive community united behind his candidacy. His electoral coalition quickly dissolved after Agnos took office, however, when his supporters charged that the mayor was giving in to business leaders and cutting liberal activists out of city hall (Keane 1991). He presided over the city during a period of economic recession and growing AIDS and homeless crises, and during his tenure he faced several major challenges: the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, major protests over the Persian Gulf War, and the establishment of a homeless encampment in Civic Center Plaza. Agnos lost the support of the board of supervisors, and by the end of his first term, his approval ratings had sunk below 30% (Williams 1991). 8. Ron Gonzales is San Jose’s first Latino mayor since the 1840s. Gonzales won a seat on the city council of a nearby Silicon Valley town at the age of 28, then served on the county board of supervisors before winning the San Jose mayoralty. Despite losing support during his first term for an affair with a staff member, he was reelected in 2002. Gonzales has focused his attention on improving the city’s transportation system, winning passage of a county sales tax to support transportation improvements; and he led efforts to pass three bond measures for spending on parks, libraries, and police and fire stations. The mayor has drawn criticism for his handling of downtown redevelopment, however, and he has clashed with city council members, county supervisors, and department heads (Zapler 2003). 9. Lionel Wilson was elected in 1977, becoming Oakland’s first Black mayor and ending a long reign of Republican control of Oakland city politics. His election was backed by a coalition that included church leaders, Black Panthers, and liberal Whites. He easily won his next two elections, but his bid for a fourth term failed badly when he finished third in the highly conten- tious 1990 primary election, winning just 17% of the vote. Wilson was a civil rights advocate and a fiscal moderate. He aggressively pursued policies to open up city employment to minorities and women, and he worked with business leaders to revitalize the city’s economy and attract downtown development and commerce. Throughout most of his tenure, he enjoyed strong support from the council and the public (DelVecchio 1998). His 1990 reelection bid suffered from criticism of his handling of the city’s drug and crime problems and his support for subsidies to the Raiders football team. 10. Frank Jordan served for 31 years on San Francisco’s police department, rising through the ranks to become police chief in 1986. He retired in 1991 to run for the mayor’s office. Jordan campaigned as a political outsider who would tend to basic city services, and he ran a neighborhood-based field operation to win a close victory over incumbent Agnos. He inherited the poor Mullin et al. / CITY CAESARS? 41 economic conditions that had troubled Agnos’s administration, and AIDS and homelessness continued to pose challenges for the city. Jordan’s political inexperience left him without a natural constituency, and he had little influence over the board of supervisors or even his own staff (Wildermuth 1999). When longtime State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown returned to San Fran- cisco to run for mayor in 1995, the election became a referendum on Jordan’s performance. Brown drew attention to the city’s ongoing problems with homelessness and transit and defeated Jordan in the general election. 11. As president of the board of supervisors, Dianne Feinstein twice ran unsuccessfully for mayor in the 1970s, announcingafter the second effort that she would not run again. In November 1978, just hours after informally telling reporters that she was getting out of politics altogether, Feinstein inherited the office of mayor after the assassination of George Moscone. Feinstein is credited with pulling the city together after the traumatic events surrounding her rise to the mayoralty. She oversaw marked growth in residential housing and successfully recruited new compa- nies to the city, but antigrowth neighborhood groups opposed her efforts and eventually passed a ballot measure imposing tough building restrictions for downtown. Feinstein had a reputation as an able manager, and she left office with a 66% public approval rating (Stein 1987). 12. Susan Hammer was a well-known community leader with strong ties to the local Demo- cratic Party organization when she was appointed to fill a vacancy on the city council in 1980. She won a narrow victory in an expensive campaign to obtain the mayoralty in 1990, and she served the two four-year terms allowed by law. Hammer held office during a long and serious recession, facing general fund budget shortfalls for five straight years. At the same time, San Jose began to play a more central role in the Silicon Valley economic boom, as the city attracted corporate facil- ities and headquarters as well as high-tech workers. Hammer was a pragmatic leader who used the budget process and committee appointments to maintain a solid council majority (Simon 1997). She continued McEnery’s downtown redevelopment agenda and expanded the scope of the redevelopment program to invest in neighborhoods and social programs. 13. Nalbandian (1989) has found that even as city managers take on greater policy-making activities, they view their role as providing nonpolitical expertise.

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Megan Mullin is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. She is writing a dissertation on the policy effects of special district governance.

Gillian Peele is fellow and tutor in politics, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, United King- dom. She is coeditor of the volumes Developments in American Politics 4 and Develop- ments in British Politics 7.

Bruce E. Cain is Robson Professor of Political Science and director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published exten- sively in the areas of state constitutional design and reform, campaign finance regula- tion, redistricting, and legislative behavior.