Tag Archives: city attorney

A Progressive City Attorney

Warning: Super-nerdy wonkishness ahead

Last night I attended the inaugural event by the San Diego chapter of the American Constitution Society; a panel exploring What Is a Progressive View of the City Attorney’s Office?  Since I don’t know enough about the inner workings, hopes and fears of the current city attorney’s race (just that it’s likely to be an 18-way slapfight), it seemed like a good place to start getting geared up.  If the streets are going to run with the blood of the nonbelievers, I should be prepared.  And prepared I am now approaching.

It got pretty deep into the wonky legal weeds of theory, so occasionally I was out of my depth on jargon or tangents, but I think the fundamental discussion can be broken down pretty simply.  Essentially the question is whether, by nature, the “public interest” can be served by a city attorney.  Given that the public interest means different things to different people, does the pursuit of such service inherently lead to the office being overtly and entirely political as the city attorney picks which version of “public interest” will be served?  The argument put forth by one of the panelists- Professor David McGowan- that a city attorney should “aim low” for a role cleaning up messes but not being proactive about policy seemed to be the most ripe as a jumping off point as it seems to lay bare all the apparent contradictions in how the city attorney position has been conceived in the first place.

Cross posted at San Diego Politico

The construct of the city attorney’s office in San Diego names the City of San Diego as the “client.”  That is, in inelegant corporate terms (and I suppose at least partly in my opinion), the city attorney protects the brand name- not necessarily the employees of the company (government officials) or necessarily the customers (citizens).  Given that the role of the city attorney is not directly to serve the general public (and sometimes to work directly against them presumably), this would seem to make the city attorney unique among other elected offices.  From President to State Assembly to Judge and Sheriff, every other elected official is put into the job directly in service to the people.  Keep them safe from crime or injustice in the non-political aspects, direct policy that protects life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness on the legislative and executive side.  But the city attorney does not exist to serve the public as an inherent or necessary function of the job.

So how should voters be utilizing the city attorney when weighing candidates?  It seems to me that the notion of aiming low and cleaning up the messes as they come can be extrapolated into a notion that the city attorney should strive to be as apolitical as possible.  A proactive, politicized city attorney, the argument goes, puts policy discretion in inappropriate hands.  But the inappropriate-ness seems to be a semantic issue.  The simple title of “mayor” or “councilmember” or “city attorney” carry no inherent value- it is what people make it out to be.  And certainly one thing we’ve seen at the national, state and local levels over the past decade is that the balance of power is fluid.  The relative power of executive, legislative and judicial branches within any political unit is in a constant state of motion and relative ascendancy/decendancy.  Some units might have a strong mayor now after a strong legislature four years ago; some might be going the other direction.  So as long as the city attorney is an elected position serving an autonomous role in the city government, it seems to me that the office is an element of the power structure that voters must use to maintain the desired balance of power.

None of this really gets to the question of what is a progressive view of the City Attorney’s office?  The underpinning of the notion of a City Attorney seems to be that a healthy civic brand is the unifying public interest of a community.  That is, by protecting the integrity of the city as an entity all the competing political views within are enabled to healthily and properly work themselves out.  And the progressive in me certainly likes that notion.  So how does a city attorney actually do that in practice?  I’m wary of the notion that being apolitical is progressive, although I don’t think that progressivism is inherently ideological in itself.  I have a difficult time with the notion that removing oneself from the political process can help to bring about a particular sort of political end.  Minimizing influence as a way of maximizing influence the notion would be, and I’m just not ready to buy onto that theoretical train.

So that leaves me with a progressive role that’s about as close to clearly defined and uncontroversial as any political role can be.  Not just clean, but open government.  This isn’t meant to be the only role of the City Attorney.  Rather the only political role of the City Attorney.  Ensuring no closed doors, no unreasonably restricted public commentary, no string of last-minute location changes for charter review committee meetings (cough), and when feasible, working to ensure a healthy adversarial relationship between the executive and legislative branches of government.  The City Attorney ought not to have a direct role in determining the conception or the application of policy, but in certain respects the public most certainly should.

Part of protecting the “brand” of the city is ensuring a vital and functional government, and it just so happens to also serve the collective public interest (by keeping their government in front of their noses) and progressive interests (hamstringing attempts at runaway concentration of power).

The Truth about John Russo

Dear Friend:

As you may know, we are strong supporters of John Russo for State
Assembly.  We know that John is the person we need in Sacramento.  We also know John personally and he has been a passionate, outspoken champion for our kids
and for our neighborhoods for nearly 20 years.

The Russo for Assembly campaign is going well.  John has done 75 House
Parties and has knocked on more than one thousand doors.  The campaign is
ready for the final push.  In fact, the Russo campaign has gone so well
that John’s opponents have resorted to distorting John’s record.  WE NEED
YOUR HELP to get the truth out about these mailicious distortions
because, without a response, many people will believe the lies.

Sandre Swanson’s supporters have made two claims against John.  One, that
in 1997 John supported a huge City Council pay increase; and, two, that
in 1997 John supported taking money away from the Kids First program.
Both of these claims are false.

Here are the facts:

1)  At no time during his nearly twelve years of excellent public service
has John ever made a discretionary vote to raise his own salary.  To the
contrary, when the City Council did have power over its own salaries,
John voted against two pay raises and refused to take a raise when he
lost on those motions.(Please see the attached Oakland Tribune column for
the real story.)  As City Attorney, John has no authority over his own
salary and, therefore, had no role in setting the City Attorney’s salary.
The City Attorney salary is determined by the City Charter.
Ironically, given the Swanson’s campaign’ lies, John Russo is the only
elected official in the East Bay to take a voluntary pay cut.  During the
Oakland budget crisis in 2002-03, John took a voluntary paycut that cost
him over $10,000.  He did this to encourage others in the City to give a
little so as to save jobs.  Unfortunatley, not one other City official or
employee followed his generous lead.

2)  John never voted to take money out of the calculated amount for
Kids First set aside.  The calculation was based upon the Charter and the
interpretation of the Charter by the City Attorney’s office and City
Staff. John was not the City Attorney at that time. The irony here is
that John was one of only 3 Councilmembers who supported the 1996
initiative creating the Kids First set aside.  And as City Attorney, John
issued opinions regarding the Kids First calculation that corrected the
earlier interpretation and has resulted in an additional  $1.67 Million
Dollars for the Kids First program. (Please go to the City Attorney’s
website and look under “Notable Cases” to find the truth for yourself.)

So here’s the situation:  Sandre Swanson’s friends from the Sacramento
PACs waited until the last minute and misrepresented John’s position on
two controversial measures.  They then use these distortions to suggest
John is greedy.  This is outrageous.  We need to stop them.  Here’s how:

TAKE THIS E-MAIL AND SEND IT TO EVERYONE ON YOUR E-MAIL LIST!  There is
great power in people who have the truth.  We have a chance here to say
no to negative and misleading campaigns right at our fingertips.  All we
have to do is let our friends know what is really going on.

Thanks for your time, and don’t forget to vote for John Russo for
Assembly.

Howard Neal, former President, Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation
C.J. Hirschfield, Executive Director, Children’s Fairyland*

(*Children’s Fairyland name is used here for identification purposes only)