Will Dallas Have A Ward System?

The Monday after Federal Judge Eldon Mahon’s single member district ruling for the Dallas City Council, I was chatting with a normally level-headed East Dallas precinct chairman, a conservative Democrat. One thing led to another, and in discussing the ruling and the districts, the old boogeyman, ward politics, came up. I could almost hear the change in his affable mood at the other end of the phone; in a whole new tone of voice he blithered, “You talk about ward politics, and you’re talking organized labor, organized crime, liberals, Republicans and maybe Communism. Not necessarily in that order.”

Only a day later, I was engaged in a similar discussion with a black precinct chairman from South Dallas, and his no-less-emotional response to ward politics was: “Call it what you will, the point is those businessmen downtown have to take us seriously now. City Hall is going to get down to our level, and government is going to be personal and for the common man.” He proceeded off on the sort of speech one usually hears voiced-over majestic shots of the sun setting behind the Washington Monument, with, say, the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” throbbing faintly in the background.



Most politicians, especially precinct chairmen, have a flair for the melodramatic. The difference is in the inflection. These guys really meant what they were saying, which, in politics, means something is definitely up.

What’s up is the jig. No longer able to hide behind the court’s skirts and proclaim, “We must not anticipate the judge” on single member districts, the pols are floundering for explanations. They sense, if only instinctively, that these court-ordered cosmetics may be more important than they originally thought. Perhaps more important than anything or anyone on the Dallas political scene since the Citizens Charter Association took over City Hall in the Thirties. And there’s not one of them – even the ones who fought for the districts and now see political hay to make from them -who isn’t more than a little apprehensive about what the future holds.

A lot of the brow knitting can be chalked up to politicians’ basic aversion to change: they tend to take to it about as readily and willingly as the Catholic Church. But a change of this magnitude stirs more deep-seated feelings. For some it is resignation to a political future just shy of the Apocalypse; for others, the simple anticipation of mastering a new and kinky system; for others still, a vague, smoldering feeling that we have been here before.

First, we encounter a semantic problem. The widespread use of “ward politics” as a synonym for the changes we can expect as a result of the districting is inappropriate at best, demagogic at worst. The fact of the matter is, ward politics as such (read Chicago, Kansas City, New York) is a peculiar form of urban government which grew in particular cities for very peculiar and particular reasons. It is not, despite all the scare talk, contagious. Indeed, ward politics in its purest form – and I’m thinking especially of the infamous Tammany Hall Machine of George Washington Plunkitt in turn-of-the-century New York City -tends to be based on everything Dallas is not.



We are fortunate that Plunkitt, the irrepressible Irish pol of the 1900’s, saw fit to have his boss philosophy recorded later in his career, for his system has become a classic of the genre, as often quoted by political scientists in discussing ward politics as Oedipus Rex is cited by English scholars in discussing tragedy. Like the late R. L. Thornton of these parts, Plunkitt’s homespun, delightfully ungrammatical, plain talk can sometimes obscure the wisdom between the lines. At one point, defending himself against charges of self-gain from his power, he says simply, “I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.”

His message is clear enough: ward politics, like any other “business,” flourishes or falls on the law of supply and demand. Without (a) a large, needy lower class, constantly seeking “healing” from the ward boss in the form of jobs, shelter, clothing -in exchange for votes on election day, and (b) a highly politicized mayor, willing and able to dole out city government spoils to the ward boss in exchange for votes on election day, the system would collapse.

Plunkitt described the a.b.c’s this way: “I don’t send them campaign literature. That’s rot. What tells in holdin’ your grip on your district is to go right down among the poor families and help them in the different ways they need help.”



Plunkitt goes on to describe how he “keeps(s) on the track of jobs” for “deservin’ men,” namely, those who have worked for him politically or can deliver, at the minimum, one vote on election day.

As State Senator Oscar Mauzy says, “It’s all well and good to talk about ward politics just because we have districts, but it’s impossible in ±he true sense. I have no jobs, no payroll to offer my people. There’s no patronage, and without patronage the system doesn’t exist.”

The fundamental reason there’s a lid on the patronage pot is that the city payroll and the budget, to a large extent, are controlled day to day in Dallas by a non-elected bureaucrat, the city manager. It’s one thing to tell the mayor the support of your voters next election day will cost him 20 jobs, three paved streets and a new street light. He can hear you. But a hired bureaucrat like George Schrader could, and would, probably care less. And as Mauzy points out, “no spoils, no power.”

The council-manager system which precludes the patronage-mongering so necessary to ward politics is at the heart of a political legacy in Dallas which is fundamentally at the other end of town from Plunkitt’s Tammany Hall. Some of the grafting, wheeling-dealing style has been in our political blood, prior to the 1930’s and the CCA. But it did not endure, as Plunkitt’s style has. Maybe the soil wasn’t right.

In the 1930’s, the hackdom at City Hall was replaced by efficiency-minded reformers who instituted the at-large electoral, council-manager form of government. The “good of Dal las,” not the good of your ward or your party, mattered here. Graft and self-gain, even in the name of helping constituents, was strictly taboo. Corporate efficiency, not muddy, messy politics, was the name of the game. Business-style politics found fertile soil here: Dallas during those years became a city of WASP, middle class, white collar homogeneity, leaving little need for factional (ethnic, partisan, class) representation and even less for the “ward healing” of the poor so essential to Plunkitt’s power. Moreover, just as Plunkitt’s ward system flourished because in many very real ways, it was needed, so did Dallas’ system of “consensus, conservatism and ommon sense” prevail, for the same reason. Dallas from the beginning was a city with a definable cause: to build all the things with which the city was not naturally endowed. That required a city government of swiftness, certainty and scope. Politics? It was simply a waste of time.



I’m sure Plunkitt would agree that this is not the sort of political heritage ripe for the ward style – districts or no. So if not ward politics, what? Mayor Pro Tern George Allen, of all people, may have hinted at the answer inadvertently recently in talking about the effect of single member districts: “It [the wards] won’t affect me. Single member districts, at-large, CCA, independent, I can still win.’ What’s important here is not Mr. Allen’s abundant self-confidence, which is nothing new, but the rather shortsighted, survival-conscious analysis he offers of the matter. If the court-ordered single member districts will revive any legacy of the Plunkitt style in Dallas, it will be a new and ultimately more limited political consciousness among city councilmen. The “good of Dallas” by-word of the CCA will be discarded like so much useless dead weight. There’s no percentage in it. The name of the game now is neighborhood, ethnic and partisan parochialism. The city councilman of the future will no doubt worry about “the good of South Dallas” or the “good of Southeast Oak Cliff” but that’s as far as their visions will reach. Understandably.



A friend from Kansas City once told me his mother, a staunch Irish Catholic, looks for only one thing when she steps into the voting booth, “The most Irish name she can find. If there’s a Hoolihan and an O’Rourke, she has a problem, but then she checks to find out which family is closer to the soil.”

We may not be in for that sort of chauvinism, but as academician/George Wallace political boss M. E. Bradford puts it, “You will see a gradual diminution of the centrist non-partisan politics of an Erik Jonsson, and the growth of factions -ethnic, partisan, social, geographical.

“These factions will assail each other publicly and in private, make deals, coalitions to accomplish things. What so-and-so can do for you becomes the guiding principle – not the ’Goals for Dallas’.”

This is no boogeyman, scare talk. Such lines have already been quickly drawn in other governmental bodies recently districted: the Dallas legislative delegation, the Dallas school board, etc. Even when the city council districts were barely three weeks old, such factional fallout had already begun. Non-establishment blacks like Dan Thomas (a Mauzy man) and Al Lipscomb (his own man) are running in newly-carved black districts, and this time must be taken seriously. A couple of Mexican-Americans are after that old North Oak Cliff-West Dallas District 2, and if they work hard, have chances. There is talk the East Dallas district will sooner or later go to a liberal Democrat. Genuine, card carrying, they’ll-admit-it-in-public Republicans are after the two North Dallas seats, and though they carry perfunctory CCA endorsement, this time it’s the CCA riding coattails instead of vice versa.



Mauzy, the undisputed boss of most of Oak Cliff, likes to call it “necessary democracy.” (Mauzy is more enlightening on the subject of factionalism when he says, “I only go to North Dallas under cover of darkness.”) The establishment likes to call it “the end of good government.” But it’s likely that single member districts are neither an end nor a beginning. Certainly you have to say community level advocacy and a little “ward healing” here and there wouldn’t hurt. It might make South Central Expressway in South Dallas and the gravel streets in Little Mexico drive-able. It might also nip in the bud such misfortunes as the Granada Theater going X-rated or the corner of Black-burn and Turtle Creek going full-scale commercial. Indeed, looking only beyond the horizon toward the “good of Dallas” is its own kind of blindness.

But consider the aforementioned vaguely sketched lines and factions, then think about the following scenario: the time is five, 10 years from now. Neighborhood, ethnic and partisan lines are rigid at City Hall. The council is composed thus: The mayor is an independent, slightly to the left when he’s in the mood. One at-large councilman is an Adlene Harrison populist/liberal, the other an establishment moderate. (This assumes the 8-3 hybrid system will stick, which according to most knowledgeable sources, is not a safe bet. Most feel 10-1 is on the way.) We have a tough-minded Mexican-American from West Dallas, a white liberal from East Dallas, an independent black from South Dallas, an even more independent black from South-east Oak Cliff, a conservative Democrat from Southwest Oak Cliff, a Wallaceite from Pleasant Grove, and two rock-hard Republicans from North Dallas. Before this council is a bond item proposal, a hefty piece of pork for the renovation of Fair Park. It is a matter which has received fairly good press, and certainly is, by the old definition, “for the good of Dallas.”



The Southeast Oak Cliff black, the West Dallas Mexican-American, the Pleasant Grove conservative are all against it. They commonly join in a coalition, especially when they see East Dallas getting all the public spoils. The South Dallas black is wavering: some of his constituents see the project as upgrading the ghetto; others feel it is a “white plot” to drive blacks from their homes. The South-west Oak Cliff conservative Democrat is also hedging: he’s normally with downtown and their pet projects, but a lot of angry folks in his district say some of the dough should come down their way. The East Dallas lib is for it, for obvious reasons, as are both at-large councilmen. The two North Dallas Republicans, after an extensive phone survey, have reluctantly decided against. They owe downtown one, but there’s too much ill will against Fair Park up north. The debating has consumed three council meetings -a different stall was used each week – and the president of the State Fair Association is threatening to resign. Downtown is livid. The Oak Cliff fencer finally goes “for,” because he can’t stand the heat from down-town. So does the South Dallas black, because he figures he can take the constituent heat later. That leaves a 5-5 tie, and the mayor with the deciding vote. He is in a helluva position: on the one hand, this is downtown’s biggest project in a long time. Bucking the establishment isn’t the suicide it used to be, but a “nay” vote could dry up some campaign coffers next time out, which as a citywide candidate, he has to think about. On the other hand, the Oak Cliff blacks and the North Dallas Republicans-the oddest and most common coalition on the council -have helped him in the past. He owes them. A double-cross here could mean all those blacks and all those Republicans down the drain next election. He finally decides: “Nay.” He’ll keep his contracts solid, and worry about the downtown money later. That’s it. Kaput! The renovation of Fair Park down the tube, not because it was a lousy idea, or too expensive, but because you can’t please all the people all the time. On a factionally divided council, maybe you can’t even please a majority any of the time.



The matter can pro and con you to death. This may well be “necessary democracy” as Mauzy says, but in the minds of many observers – many of them non-establishment people – it represents a sort of crippling paralysis, a benumbing disease which will sooner or later render City Hall me-chanically unable to do the job of government, beyond paving a street here, handing out some park land there. Some would tell you that is the business of government. Which is true, but it’s not the only business of government. The temporary euphoria of “personal, grass roots government,” many fear, will soon enough sour to a frustration with a less competent, less clean, less big-minded style of city management. As one North Dallas pol said, “It’s rather like a needless mutation in nature. Maybe for some reason you sprout an extra toe. Another species might need it, but it’s not for you.”

One thing the pols do agree on is that all of this will take time. In the meantime, there are a few tangential developments to watch. Most feel the CCA will continue its decline in power, as much from its confused, chaotic reaction to the districts (see page 8) as from the obvious geographical disadvantages it now suffers. Most, too, feel the old taboo on partisan affiliation will be shed like dead skin in a few years; already would-be councilmen are running along partisan lines.



The mayor, already titular in power, will decline further in clout. In the past, with a couple of exceptions, the mayor was the unofficial head of the establishment slate, and as such, enjoyed an informal, chairman of the board authority. Now with council-men’s power derived from specific neighborhoods – not downtown – he is not to be reckoned with, even informally. In fact, many feel the establishment’s best shot for reasserting power at City Hall now is to push for a strong mayor system, in which the mayor would assume budgetary, patronage and even veto powers. Don’t hold your breath though: most establishment people are about as enamored of this notion as they are of single member districts.

Perhaps most importantly, businessmen, the heart of Dallas’ political machinery these many years, will slowly but surely flee the city political scene. They will no doubt find the hazy, ambiguous, plodding world of factional politics out of line with their yes-and-no sensibilities. As one observer said, “Businessmen and politics mix like oil and water anyway. Now with real, live factional politics at City Hall, the businessman won’t fit into the system. He won’t want to risk it.”

The long-awaited arrival of community level representation on the Dallas City Council will not bring with it a genuine ward system. We had one prior to the 1930’s and threwit out in the name of efficiency and reform. Now its skeleton has returned to us -also, ironically, in the name of reform. And if ward politics of the Plunkitt variety are simply too repugnant to the political consciousness of the city, we can expect the focus ofcity government to change: the small business of government will be pursued with greater accountability and zeal, while the large business -theTown Lakes, the Fair Parks, the mass transit systems -will, at the minimum, be chewed, swallowed and spit out several times before seeing the light of day. As a fellow journalist said, “Oh, well. At least it makes us like everybody else.” Yep.

Most Likely to Be Ward Boss



Oak Cliff

State Senator Oscar Mauzy

Mauzy’s clout among Oak Cliff blacks is legendary, though some think his 23rd Senatorial district will eventually be taken away from him by a member of his black constituency. For the present though, Mauzy can pull strings in black Oak Cliff District 8, where one of his people, precinct chairman Dan Thomas, is already running this spring and possibly North Oak Cliff-West Dallas, District 2, a paradoxical mixture of Mexican-American West Dallas and white North Oak Cliff.



County Commissioner Roy Orr

Orr, as a county commissioner with a “service center” in his Southwest Oak Cliff Precinct 4, is at a real advantage: part of his job as county commissioner is precisely the kind of individual constituent “ward healing” many see as the road to power in the future. Orr is also shrewd, manipulative, and at home in the nitty-gritty political milieu. He could well hold some sway over that Southwest Oak Cliff district 1, though some feel most of his real grass roots power is not in Oak Cliff, but in South Dallas County suburban areas like DeSoto.



South Dallas

Albert Lipscomb

Lipscomb has been the most vocal champion of single member districts from the black community. Most feel the creation of a bona fide South Dallas ward will bring “The Lip” to legitimacy as a political operator. Lots of grass roots pull in the ghetto, and a feel for how a ward boss should operate. Now we’ll have to see if he has the maturity to handle it.



Mayor Pro Tern George Allen

Though the Mayor Pro Tern has made a career of being an establishment black, many feel he is astute and survival-minded enough to adjust to the new rules of the game brought on by the creation of wards. If Allen is re-elected this April in that South Dallas District 6 over Lipscomb, we could see a whole new George Allen in a few months, one directly responsive to ghetto needs and unconcerned about what North Dallas or downtown thinks.

Pleasant Grove

M. E. Bradford

Bradford’s presidential-year Wallace machine in Pleasant Grove is well-oiled enough to be revved up at will for city elections. Though Bradford publicly swears off any interest in working the Pleasant Grove ward, a lot of pols aren’t believing it for a minute. Bradford is as astute as they come, and known to be somewhat enamored of power.

State Representative John Bryant Bryant flat knocked the socks off the Wallace machine in Pleasant Grove last year in his special election to the State House. And he did it the right way: by working the district block by block, house by house. Pleasant Grove is a funny area politically; lots of Wallace action, but a good deal of labor populism, too. Many feel if Bryant chose to push his block-by-block machine in city politics, he would have more than a modicum of clout.

East Dallas

State Representative Jim Mattox

Mattox has the innate instincts of a ward boss. His initial election to the Texas House of Representatives in 1972 was a model of how to “work a district”. His sweat-and-tears approach to campaigning, good-ol’-boy sincerity, and personal attention to constituents cut through the ideological mix in his legislative district: blacks, the elderly and the young hip. East Dallas is a rapidly changing area, and Mattox seems to be the one man with a finger on the pulse. If he’s interested – and there’s no reason to think he’s not-he could well control this slot in the future.

West Dallas

The Medrano Family

The Medranos (Robert on school board, Pancho in labor) are the most visible Mexican-Americans around of the West Dallas stripe. A Mexican-American takeover in this district is tricky: some good portion of it includes middle class, white North Oak Cliff. Indeed, the district has always gone to a representative of this constituency in the past. But there are a lot of votes in that West Dallas ghetto, and given the proper amount of stimulation, the district could turn. Pancho Medrano, Jr. is running this time, as is Roberto Arredondo, against William Nicol, a solid Oak Cliff Chamber establishment type, so we will see an early test.