Friday News Roundup: Cambridge City Council impeaches Bush
Thursday is Chronicle day in Cambridge, the day that newspaper releases its weekly addition. Generally I like to support independent locals like The Alewife or The Somerville News (The Chronicle is owned by Townline Newspapers, a subsidiary of the Boston Herald) and endeavor to link to them as much as possible. I'm big fans of Neil McCabe and George Hassett, editors of the Alewife and News respectively. However, as far as Cambridge political news the Chronicle simply does a great job covering that beat. So while I'll continue to link to the Alewife and Somerville News frequently throughout the week, I'm also going to start a Friday news roundup to give my thoughts on interesting articles out of the previous day's Chronicle.
This week there are two interesting pieces, both out of the City Council. The first that caught my eye was a short news blurb about a now standard action on the council, sponsored by Councilor Henrietta Davis. That is, Davis sponsored and the council approved a resolution supporting a congressional bill to "censure and possibly impeach" President Bush. Of course the Cambridge City Council doesn't have any authority to take action against the President, but it's a symbolic move to show the growing discontent in this country against the administration.
The only dissenting voice came from the newest Councilor Craig Kelly who said he "disagreed with the tactics used." I'm not sure if this means that Kelly would oppose the censure or impeachment of Bush all together, but in any case it highlights and issue that I've thought about for years. That is, what affect do such symbolic actions actually have, and are they really a waste of the sponsoring bodies otherwise valuable time?
When I was a senior at Oberlin College in 2003, I was an elected member of the Student Senate and active in the Oberlin Coalition Against the War, a group formed to oppose the new Iraq War. Hoping to bring anti-war sentiment to the forefront of campus debate that year, I organized sponsored a referendum to gauge the student body's level of opposition to the war, and joined over 75 other colleges with in winning a student government resolution opposing the war. The process was interesting and taught me a lot about the pains of organizing students, but in the end obviously did nothing to prevent an invasion or Iraq or end the war.
Were the hundreds of hours I put in to this effort well spent? I don't know. On the one hand yes, I do believe that such symbolic actions, when seen in the aggregate can do a lot to show growing levels of discontent with the individuals, bodies or policies they oppose. On the other hand, if you look at the list of other student governments that opposed the war, they include such colleges as: UC Santa Cruz, Hampshire College, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Reed College and University of Wisconsin - Madison. Is it a surprise that these places had high levels of opposition to the war? No. Of course not. If they schools that opposed the war included places like Vanderbilt, Duke or Brigham-Young the message could have been more effective.
The same could be said for the Cambridge City Council's support for impeaching the President -- do you think we'll see a drastic change in administration now that Henrietta Davis has taken a hardline stance against George Bush?
The second piece that struck me in yesterday's Chronicle a much more mundane topic, discussing a proposal sponsored by Mayor Ken Reeves, Vice Mayor Tim Toomey and Councilor Michael Sullivan. With support of City Manager Bob Healey, the group wants to add $245,000 to the Council budget for "research assistants" who would serve as aids to the 7 councilors who aren't chosen as Mayor or Vice Mayor.
While the Chronicle article raises some important issues about the public process around this proposal, on a basic level I whole-heartedly agree with the idea. To begin with, I don't believe that public service should be a life long career. There are too many elected officials who have spent their entire adult life in office, thus preventing other "normal" citizens a chance to directly influence public policy. I believe strongly in term limits, and strongly in instituting mechanisms which prevent incumbency advantages. However, I also believe that once in office, officials should have enough resources at their disposal to effectively serve the needs and interests of their constituencies, and as such I believe that part-time, "amateur" legislative body in a city the size of Cambridge doesn't work.
While certainly not the largest municipality in the state, Cambridge is a city of more than 100,000 very diverse individuals that chooses all 9 City Councilors at large. While most councilors still have geographic strongholds (ie, North Cambridge for Anthony Galluccio, East Cambridge for Tim Toomey, Area IV for Denise Simmons and Cambridgeport for Henrietta Davis), City Councilors are expected to be a councilor for all Cantabrigians, not just those in a particular ward or district. If this means that Councilors don't have the time to manage their own calendar or extensively research every major policy change that comes across their desk, it only makes sense for them to be backed up by a professional staff, even if that staff is just one person. We need to make public service accessible to all citizens, but once in office we must allow and expect them to be as professional and effective as possible.
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