Weak Mayor – Strong Mayor

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is doing his best to bring the Weak Mayor – Strong Mayor issue to the forefront.

With California’s capital city in deep economic trouble, Mayor Kevin Johnson wants to call the shots, just as he once did as a star point guard for the Phoenix Suns basketball team. But there’s an obstacle: Sacramento has what is known a “weak mayor” system, making its mayor, in effect, just another city-council member.

Mr. Johnson says Sacramento needs a “strong mayor” arrangement — with the mayor as head of the government — as do a majority of big cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco. To get there, Mr. Johnson is campaigning for a controversial ballot measure that would boost his powers to lead this city of 480,000.

“If you have to do everything by committee, it gets bogged down and you miss a ton of opportunities,” the 43-year-old Democrat said during an interview in his City Hall office.

But those who oppose the measure accuse Mr. Johnson of making a power grab. “This initiative, if it passes, will put only one seat at the table,” says Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy. “The checks and balances are lopsided” in Mr. Johnson’s proposal.

The same old tired arguements that are always used when this issue arises.

However, since the Political Philosophy 101 Class has not discussed his issue in a while, it will be soon.

I will be giving my same old philosophical view that Strong does not mean effective … nor does Weak indicate ineffective.

It’s not the system that makes or breaks a Mayor.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 4:08 am and is filed under Political Philosophy 101. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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