Where is the Institutional Jealousy?

Democratic institutions rely on institutional jealousies to prevent one branch of government from abusing its power. This is famously woven into the US Constitution through a system of checks and balances. The health of our democracy depends on institutions jealously guarding their powers from encroachment by other branches. All I'm going to say about Washington is that there's a lesson that we can learn about separation of powers that applies to Richardson, Texas.

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The biggest separation of powers spelled out in the Richardson City Charter is between the City Council and the City Manager. The City Council sets policy, then hires a City Manager to carry out that policy. The City Charter is largely silent on the matter of separation of powers between the Mayor and the rest of the Council. The Mayor gets one vote, the same as every other Councilmember. To the extent that Mayors have exercised various powers, it's usually because the Council lets them.

An example can be seen in the agenda item for the May 5, 2023, City Council meeting: "Review and discuss the City Council Committee and Board Liaison assignments." What are these? The City Council has three standing committees: Audit, Education, and Business (formerly named Retail, until a name change was announced by Mayor Bob Dubey last week, on whose authority I don't know. He didn't say and no one on the City Council cared to ask.) The Council also has four positions serving as liaisons to four advisory boards and commissions (Animal Services, Cultural Arts, Library, and Parks).

There are also three regional assignments — Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition, North Central Texas Council of Governments, and NCTCOG's Regional Transportation Council. I'll have more to say about these regional boards in a postscript. Finally, there are some additional bodies where the Mayor of Richardson is included automatically as an ex officio member, like the Metroplex Mayor's Association.

How are these assignments made? At last week's work session, the Mayor passed out a form and asked Councilmembers to fill in their names indicating their preferences for assignments in ranked order. That was the extent of the "review and discussion" called for in the text of the agenda item. This week, the agenda has the same "review and discuss" item, with this summary of the item: "Mayor Bob Dubey will announce the committee and board liaison assignments for the 2023-25 term." Again, "review and discuss" in the title with no discussion in the meeting, only an announcement of the assignments by Mayor Dubey. The rest of the co-equal Councilmembers silently accepted this decision-making process.

Maybe the Mayor looked at those turned-in application forms and said, "By golly, there are no conflicts. Everybody can get exactly what they want. What a happy coincidence!" Or maybe the Mayor resolved conflicts all by himself. I've seen no charter language or ordinance giving the Mayor the power to do this himself. Or maybe he talked to Councilmembers privately to resolve conflicts. That could be seen as a violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act, so I hope for his sake he didn't do this.

The first law of group activities is: someone will take all the power unless and until someone else stops them. The Mayor just took power unto himself to make these assignments and the Council let him. It doesn't matter what excuses the Councilmembers offer. Institutional power chipped away is lost forever. In Richardson, the Council had little institutional power to begin with. They can scarcely afford to lose the scant power they have left. It's habit forming. It's time for Councilmembers to claw some of it back.

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P.S. About those regional bodies. One is the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG). Another is the NCTCOG Regional Transportation Council (RTC). And a third is the Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition (DRMC). Until her defeat at the polls, Janet DePuy held seats on all three. She highlighted that experience in her campaign for Mayor, warning that the City of Richardson would lose some of these positions if she lost her own seat on Richardson's City Council. Dubey said she is wrong, that seats on regional boards go with the City, not with the individual. Who was right? On balance, DePuy was right.

It's true that membership on NCTCOG's General Assembly goes to each member city and Richardson won't lose that. But DePuy was elected by that General Assembly to NCTCOG's Executive Board. Richardson loses that board seat. Maybe a Richardson appointee will get elected again in the future, but until then, it's a seat lost. Dubey appointed Justice to Richardson's seat in the General Assembly. (Congrats to Justice, by the way. It's deserved.) On whose authority did Mayor Dubey do this? Dunno. In announcing the appointment, Mayor Dubey called it a "coup for Richardson." How a seat that "goes with the city," as Dubey called it while campaigning against DePuy, is now a "coup" wasn't explained. He also conveniently forgot to mention that DePuy's seat on the NCTCOG Executive Board doesn't go to Justice. As was said before, that's lost to Richardson.

It's true that membership on NCTCOG's RTC also goes to member cities. But some of those memberships are aggregated. In Richardson's case, there is one seat shared with Addison. Addison had agreed to let DePuy have the seat. Now that she's gone, Richardson will allow Bruce Arfsten, Mayor of the Town of Addison, to hold the seat. Again, another seat that Richardson held as primary member has been lost. Another detail Mayor Dubey conveniently omitted. Mayor Dubey appointed himself as alternate member. On whose authority? Dunno.

These acts are the Mayor chipping away at the other Councilmembers' institutional power. As Mayors are fond of saying, "It's the Richardson Way." As Richardson City Councils are fond of replying, "Crickets".