Government Study Commissions and County Home Rule

Abstract

Most of the state action on county home rule occurred in the 1970s and most of the 149 charters were adopted in the 1970s. Although there is still interest in home rule, it is largely confined to a few states and specific counties. In Pennsylvania there are six county home rule charters, and five of the six were approved in the 1970s. Only home rule for Allegheny County has been approved since then. Allegheny County's success came in 1998 after two unsuccessful efforts in the 1970s. This article is a study of Allegheny County's efforts to obtain home rule focusing on the charter writing process. The author contends that the charter writing phase has a major impact on whether the change effort is successful. He applies a framework to study this phase of the home rule effort. The framework consists of three models to categorize members by their orientation on the kinds of changes they seek. In addition to the models that are used to categorize members by their change preferences, a typology is applied to categorize members by their motivations and personal agendas to aid in explaining their behavior and voting on charter provisions. How the government study commission is chosen has an impact on the type of charter recommended and ultimately on the success of the change effort. Two of the charter commissions were elected, and the successful commission was appointed. A different model dominated each commission. The author concludes that an appointed commission and state parameters on the type of charter that could be recommended to the voters were major factors in the success of the change effort.

Keywords:

• County home rule
• Local government
• County government reform
• Charter writing
• Government study commissions
• Blue ribbon commissions

Notes

^aThe Census Bureau uses a definition of home rule that counts any county as home rule that has been designated as such regardless of the extent of the grant of power to the county. According to the latest available information from the census at the time this article was prepared, the number of home rule counties was 237 or 7.8% of county governments. Of these, 52% were in 6 states. Kansas had the most with 37 or 35%. The state with the greatest percentage of home rule counties was South Carolina with 20 or 43% of its counties. The other states with 13 or more home rule counties were Florida (15), Georgia (13), Iowa (20), and New York (19). Eleven states had no home rule counties. These were located chiefly in the West or New England. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1992 Census of Governments; Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1995.

^bGamm, and Marando and Florestano did research and published on this topic in the 1970s, but interest in the academic community waned with the general lack of interest by the public and local leadership in county home rule.

^cAt the time of this writing, there were active efforts to obtain home rule for two counties.

^dIn the 1972 commission, all members had some college education and three possessed advanced degrees. In the 1977 commission, six of the nine had family incomes that were at least double the average for the county. Two of the others had incomes above the average. Seven of the nine had some college—most with bachelor's degrees. The other two had at least high school diplomas. According to census data estimates, the median income for families was under $10,000 and the educational attainment was only 54% with a high school diploma or above.

^eThe committee was known as the Committee to Prepare Allegheny County for the 21st Century (C0mPAC 21).

^fFoerster, who had been a county commissioner since 1967, was defeated in the 1995 primary election, and the Republicans took control of the county in the 1995 general election for the first time since 1935. In early 1997, a bill crafted from the recommendations of the committee appointed by Foerster was submitted in the state legislature allowing the county commissioners to appoint a committee to draft a home rule charter. It was lobbied heavily by the business community and Allegheny County's state lobbyist.

^gDespite the fact that he was a candidate on a Republican slate and the GSC was partisan, the Democratic members agreed that he did not favor Republican positions. In fact, he left the GSC in the middle of the deliberations to take a position in a county office headed by a Democrat.