Advertisement

newsPolitics

Why doesn’t Dallas want a strong-mayor system? City’s charter review rekindles debate

A proposed shift to a strong-mayor government hasn’t been on the ballot for Dallas residents since 2005.

Dallas has never voted for a strong mayor.

It didn’t want one nearly 20 years ago when Black voters shot down a ballot measure, fearing a consolidation in mayoral power. It doesn’t seem to want one now after council member Cara Mendelsohn shelved a proposal to increase the power of the mayor that got no support during the city’s charter review process.

Why This Story Matters
Dallas is one of the few largest cities in the United States that has a weak mayor form of government. Support for a weak mayor in Dallas is deeply rooted.

Unlike most other major U.S. cities, Dallas has a strong-city manager form of government. The city manager is the top administrative official in Dallas and oversees the budget and day-to-day operations of various departments. The manager is not directly accountable to the voters because that role is hired by the City Council.

Advertisement

The city’s charter positions the mayor as the face of city government. The mayor serves as an at-large member of the City Council with the ability to appoint committees and preside over meetings. They represent Dallas’ interests in regional groups such as the DFW International Airport’s board of directors, and even appoint chairs of influential boards like the Park Board and the City Plan Commission.

Political Points

Get the latest politics news from North Texas and beyond.

Or with:

Yet, the mayor lacks broad executive authority and cannot veto any policy or legislation put forth by council members. They also cannot enforce or execute ordinances passed by City Council. That role rests with the city manager.

As council members continue discussing changes to the city’s charter, officials are treading challenging waters amid a pension shortfall, a search for a new city manager, and significant budgetary concerns. The question Mendelsohn raised was whether, with such high stakes, an empowered mayor should have a greater role in addressing important citywide issues.

Advertisement

Voters consider changes to the city’s charter every 10 years. Mendelsohn withdrew the strong-mayor idea to waive off any associations with Mayor Eric Johnson, whose frayed relationship with some council members has bubbled into the public sphere.

It’s unclear what Johnson thinks about the dynamic. His office did not respond to requests for comment sent through four emails and three telephone calls between June 18 and July 18.

“There’s a lack of accountability when the most powerful person for the city is not actually elected by the people — not accountable to the people. They’re not accountable to the voters. The voters should be choosing their leader,” Mendelsohn said during a June council briefing. She encouraged a study to gauge the pros and cons of shifting the levers of power to the only citywide elected official in the municipal government.

Advertisement

Why not a strong mayor?

Council members have little appetite for changing a decades-old system. Paula Blackmon, who represents District 9, said she does not see council members pursuing a strong-mayor form of government any time soon.

“If you’re being objective, you’re asking the body to give up more of its power,” she said days before Mendelsohn withdrew her amendment. “That usually never happens, right?”

The current governance structure operates like a business, Blackmon said. The City Council functions like a board of directors that selects its CEO — the city manager. It’s sometimes better to find a “professional” who fits a particular skill set for the top administrative role in the city rather than elect them, she said.

Former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who served from 2011 to 2019, pitched an idea: What if the mayor had veto power for decisions related to the budget, bond elections and direct reports?

“Council’s never going to want to do this,” Rawlings told The Dallas Morning News. “The citizens would want to do this. They would love it.”

The added power would help the mayor set an agenda and direction for City Council, he said. Rawlings recalled when he was mayor some Dallas residents saying the council did not have a “clear strategy” and was always going in a “harum-scarum” direction under the weaker-mayor system.

Even incremental increases to mayoral power appear to lack support.

During a June meeting, council members indicated they would reject any measure to strengthen the mayor. They were unwilling to give the mayor the power to pick the mayor pro tem and deputy mayor pro tem, the top two members of the council. Mendelsohn was the only member who voted to adopt.

Advertisement

The straw vote came less than two weeks after council members showed an openness to adopt amendments to the charter that would chip away at the mayor’s power to call meetings and appoint members to the council’s committees.

Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said council members oppose strengthening the mayor for the same reason U.S. senators don’t want to remove the filibuster: It would eat into their power.

“Everyone’s the king when no one actually has the crown firmly planted on their head,” he said.

A strong mayor and the electorate

Support for a weak mayor in Dallas is deeply rooted. The system was conceived in 1930 by a group of business owners who wanted to thwart the political influence of the Ku Klux Klan in city government.

Advertisement

Opposition to changing the system is based on a fear of “concentrated political authority” present throughout the state, Jillson said. In Texas, centralized government often is associated with “high taxes and increasing expenses.”

Ken Smith, president of Revitalize South Dallas and a District 7 resident, said he does not think the current system of government is effective at solving the city’s problems, but he doesn’t think simply increasing mayoral power will make a difference.

“What’s lacking in the city of Dallas is our vision and a system that would produce leaders, not managers,” Smith said. “We don’t need any more managers.”

Those advocating for a strong mayor must also better define what that system would look like, he said. The case for a strong mayor was “stronger” in 2005, Smith added.

Advertisement

That year, then-Dallas Mayor Laura Miller led an unsuccessful effort to switch the city to a strong-mayor form of government. The proposal found little traction with South Dallas residents, who turned out in unexpected numbers to oppose the measure. Archives from The Dallas Morning News show opposition to the proposal stemmed from Miller’s unpopularity with many Black voters in Dallas, who said she did not pay enough attention to the city’s southern neighborhoods as mayor.

Benefits of a strong-mayor system

Three of the country’s 10 largest cities, according to 2023 census data, have a council-manager form of government. Two of them — Dallas and San Antonio — are in Texas. Of the five largest cities in Texas, Houston is the only one to have a strong-mayor government.

In Houston, the mayor operates as the city’s chief executive. In addition to making sure all city ordinances are enforced, Houston’s mayor has near-total control of the City Council’s agenda.

Advertisement

During a City Council meeting last month, Mendelsohn praised Houston’s government system and said it allowed that city’s mayor to “solve any issue they want” in a way Dallas cannot.

Jillson said he thinks it’s time for Dallas to “seriously entertain” a strong-mayor system, especially considering recent clashes between Johnson and former City Manager T.C. Broadnax.

In February, Broadnax announced he was resigning at the suggestion of a majority of council members. Council members said the city government was steeped in a “leadership void” and that it had become difficult to get policies passed due to the simmering tensions.

“Weak-mayor systems, particularly in big cities where there is a lot to be done, can foster irresponsibility since people can’t actually drive policy. No one can drive policy,” Jillson said.

Advertisement

Jack Kocks, president of the Estates West neighborhood association, which straddles districts 11 and 12, said Broadnax’s departure had him take a “close look” at City Hall. He didn’t agree with how the former city manager dealt with budgets. That no bond funds were allocated to the City Hall building in need of repair was a failure he attributed to Broadnax, he said. Other cities comparable to Dallas’ size had strong mayors, Kocks said, so why not Dallas?

A mayor’s ability to appoint and remove department heads, propose a budget to the City Council or veto line items could provide more “day-to-day oversight,” Kocks said, in line with some of Rawlings’ suggestions.

Miller, who served from 2002 to 2007, told The News in a statement that Dallas mayors are unable to fulfill the vision they were elected on due to the strong-city manager structure. Whereas mayors can be voted out by residents, city managers — who are appointed by the City Council — “often stay long past their prime,” she said.

Referencing the recent battles between Johnson and Broadnax, Miller said the “biggest loser” was the public.

Advertisement

“This system is not working,” she said. “What we need most is fast, decisive action on every important issue that threatens the well-being of the city, and we will only get that if we move past the council-manager form of government.”