Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Local elections are already partisan
When Wisconsin voters mark their ballots in local elections this April, they won’t have the help of party identification next to candidates’ names. New city council members will not form partisan coalitions nor vote as a bloc. Wisconsin has maintained nonpartisan local elections for more than a century, but this practice may have outlived its purpose.
Defenders of the current system argue that city issues have little to do with partisan politics and nonpartisan elections help voters choose the most qualified candidates. But I’ve analyzed nearly 1,000 nonpartisan local elections and watched hundreds of hours of city council meetings across the state. Nonpartisanship is not preventing partisan conflict in local government, and it may be causing new problems.
Wisconsin’s nonpartisan local elections were adopted in 1912 to solve a series of problems that no longer exist. Progressive reformers led by Gov. Francis McGovern supported nonpartisanship to fight corruption and insulate local decisions from party bosses. Parties used to be pathways to local power. Party bosses influenced city hiring, collected kickbacks, and helped steer investment and mobilized voters with the promise of personal gain. In that era, nonpartisan local elections could help prevent parties from buying the loyalty of local officials — but those days are gone.
Nonpartisan elections don’t work for today’s tribal politics
Today partisanship is ideological, intimate, and personal. It is a type of politics—based in beliefs and a sense of belonging, rather than a direct connection to an organization—that nonpartisan elections cannot contain.
Indeed, my research finds that partisanship plays a critical role in local government today. About half of those elected to city council have a partisan record. Debates on issues and votes on local policy often divide city councils along partisan lines. But the partisan nature of this politics remains partially hidden, with local leaders publicly maintaining their commitment to nonpartisan local government.
This puts local candidates in a difficult position. On the one hand, they— like most of us—identify as liberals or conservatives and want to signal that to voters. On the other hand, they must defend the promise of nonpartisan local government. This can lead to candidates talking themselves into knots, sending mixed messages about what they believe and what they’ll do. It can also create highly contentious local races that center on who can appear the most nonpartisan and who is, allegedly, breaking the rules of local politics.
Wisconsin’s nonpartisan elections actually confuse and anger voters
Our not-quite-nonpartisan politics can also confuse and anger voters who are suspicious that nonpartisanship is even possible. Some voters dig through candidate records to try and sniff out a candidate’s “true” partisan identity. In public comment during city council meetings, voters often criticize leaders for violating the rules of nonpartisanship (or for not being partisan in the expected way). In today’s political environment, I think we should be concerned about a political system that may foster greater distrust, suspicion, and resentment.
I know that more partisanship might be a tough sell. But local elections need not become another battlefield of partisan dysfunction. There are reforms short of a fully partisan local ballot that would give voters a better sense of where candidates stand. These include allowing:
Each candidate to choose a short label to accompany their name on the ballot.
Both partisan and nonpartisan candidates to run in one primary where the top two advance.
Parties and other local leaders to make formal endorsements that could be filed and publicized along with nomination papers and campaign finance disclosures
Such reforms have been tried at different times in Wisconsin’s history and in different places across the country. At their best they increase voters’ knowledge about local candidates, help local coalitions form around critical issues, and increase participation and accountability. Ideally, they do this while letting parties play a transparent role in local elections without dominating them.
When McGovern introduced nonpartisan election reform in 1912, he said: “The question is no longer whether or not Milwaukee shall have nonpartisan elections. It is rather whether such elections… shall hereafter be conducted openly or clandestinely.” Today the question has been reversed. It is no longer whether parties and partisanship will play a role in local elections, but whether that role will be visible to all or only a savvy few.
Benny Witkovsky is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. His dissertation examines nonpartisan politics and polarization in small cities in Wisconsin.