Mayoral Election Debated

The Cambridge City Council on Monday debated a controversial proposal calling for the direct election of the mayor, with the proposal’s sponsors fighting implications that it would mostly benefit themselves.

Under the current system, the mayor is elected every two years by the City Council from among its nine members. Michael A. Sullivan has held the mayoral office since 2002.

The order—authored by former mayor Anthony D. Galluccio and Kenneth E. Reeves ’72—was ultimately tabled, meaning it will not be considered again until a majority of the Council agrees to discuss it at a later date.

“I want to know that the mayor has had to prove [himself] to the people, not...to nine city councillors, at least seven of whom want to be the mayor,” said Vice Mayor Marjorie C. Decker, an outspoken proponent of the plan. “But there are those of us who don’t want to see that happen.”

But residents criticizing the proposal noted that the popular Galluccio has much to gain if it becomes law. Galluccio, who served as mayor from 2000-2001, received the highest number of first-place votes in each of the last three City Council elections. In 2003, he received 1,300 more first-place votes than Sullivan, who went on to become mayor for a second term.

“Galluccio’s proposal is obviously designed so that he would win,” said Robert Winters, a math instructor at the Extension School and editor of the Cambridge Civic Journal.

Winters said that in Worcester, which has directly elected its mayor since 1987—and whose system served as a model for Galluccio’s proposal—the most popular city councillor has gone on to become mayor without exception.

“The mathematics of it all is so simple,” Winters said.

Councillors opposed to the proposition stressed that it could destabilize the city’s complex voting process and increase the mayor’s influence in local politics.

If the Council were to accept the new proposal, city residents would vote this November on whether they wanted to elect the mayor themselves. If that measure passed, then the mayor would be elected directly through a simple ballot beginning in 2007.

Several councillors were unenthusiastic about the proposed measure.

Councillor David P. Maher warned against it, noting that several mainstream mayoral candidates could splinter the vote, enabling an extremist candidate to win.

“You could be electing the mayor by as little as 12% of the vote,” Maher said. “If that’s democratic government, I don’t know what is.”

Others focused on maintaining a balance of municipal power.

The proposal, if passed, would create a simple mayoral ballot separate from the one used to elect city councillors. A voter would check one candidate for mayor.

The city council ballot, however, would continue to be based on a proportional representation scheme, which allows voters to rank a number of candidates for the council.

In that system, once one candidate has met a certain quota of votes, he or she is elected, and his or her remaining votes are distributed to the candidates whom those voters selected as second. The process continues until all nine seats have been filled.

In Cambridge, most of the day-to-day functioning is overseen by the City Manager, Robert W. Healy, instead of the mayor. Galluccio and Reeves emphasized that “in no way would [our] changes alter the power” of the mayor, and that increased mayoral influence was not their intention.

Some councillors feared, though, that the proposed model would inevitably expand the mayor’s powers.

Dennis L. Irish, a city councillor in Worcester, which directly elects its mayor, said that Cambridge’s proposed model could easily cause tension between the mayor and the city manager.

“The mayor will become the chief political figure in the city,” Irish said in an interview yesterday.

“While in fact he will have no more authority than he has now, [direct election] will create conflict between the two.”

Supporters countered this claim, sometimes heatedly, arguing that voters ought to select their mayor, and direct election would eliminate the political wrangling among councillors for the mayor’s seat.

“Who could ever argue with sending the question to the voters?” said Reeves. “It seems that several can.”

At one point in Monday’s meeting, Decker suggested that mayors selected by the Council had not been effective leaders of the School Committee, which the mayor must chair.

“I feel obliged to respond,” said Sullivan.

“I’m shocked,” Decker retorted.

—Staff writer Brendan R. Linn can be reached at blinn@fas.harvard.edu.