Why Focus on Local Government?

The American Legislative Issue Campaign Exchange (ALICE) has a creative and ambitious agenda:  They’ve set out to identify 10,000 progressive local elected officials and create a network to share best practices.  We support these efforts for several reasons:

• Local leaders administer over our urban infrastructure and are the main decision makers on many of the policy issues we most care about:  Child welfare, workforce development, clean water, housing, transit planning, land use, employment training and social services that make up our safety net. 

• These local officials are tomorrow’s state and national leaders. Many of our city council members, county board officials, county executives, mayors and metro officials will become key decision makers in state legislatures and Congress.  The earlier we reach them, the easier it will be to implement best practices in all levels of government.

• Nineteen of twenty elected officials in this country are local.   The Census Bureau reports that out of 511,039 American elected officials, less than 4 percent are in federal and state government.  The remaining 96 percent - over 490,000 -serve in local government.  For every person in congress, there are over 900 local officials.  For every state elected official, there are 66 at the local level. 

• Resources for local elected officials are stretched thin.   They have few staff and are often overwhelmed and outnumbered by corporate contract lobbyists.  The fiscal crisis hitting state legislatures has an acute impact on local government, which is increasingly mandated to govern over more areas with less funding. 

• The evolution of devolution means local government will continue to grow.   The number of local government employees has increased from 3.3 million in 1946 to almost 19 million today:  That’s a 470% increase in capacity, while our population increased just 104% during that same period. During the 1990’s, the number of local government employees increased by over 17%, and will continue to grow at a faster rate than state and federal government.

Finally, This national network doesn’t exist.   Many regional groups successfully communicate with state, county and local officials, but there is no national  network of progressive mayors, county executives, and other local elected officials.  If successful, we will take an important and strategic step in promoting best practices, and will continue to build on the existing capacities of regional organizations.

Contact us at andy@highroadnow.org to help ALICE create this network.

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