Charter Committee

Introduction

The Charter Committee of Greater Cincinnati is the oldest active, independent political party in America. Founded in 1924, it has always stressed citizenship above partisanship and honest, efficient local government. Charterites are Republicans, Democrats and Independents who on a local level put aside their state and national affiliations to work in unison to ensure that the Greater Cincinnati area remains one of the best managed and most livable regions in the country. With rare exceptions, Charter is only concerned with issues which affect the Greater Cincinnati community. The party does not believe in the patronage system, and most of the work is done by volunteers. In some ways it is as much a "civic" organization as a party - hence the retention of the word "committee" in the name.

History

The Charter Committee began as a reform movement in 1924, at a time when local corruption was so infamous that the city had earned the unenviable reputation as the worst-governed city in America. A political cartoon of the period shows a man stuck in a pothole, with the caption: "Hey, don't just help me! Get ready to pull my horse out, too."

Both the city and the county were controlled by a strong Republican machine established by "Boss" George Cox in the late 1880's. Cox's machine controlled City Council, the courts, the police and the county. When Cox retired because of illness, he was succeeded by his protégée, Rudolph Hynicka. Hynicka established the Republican Executive and Advisory Committee to be the ruling body of the local Republican party. But the real power lay with the Republican Central Committee. That body was made up of ward and township captains, elected in even-numbered years from starting in 1914. Hynicka maintained tight control over this group, though he spent an increasing amount of time in New York. He was the head of the Columbia Burlesque Wheel there, but he kept in touch with "the boys back home" by telephone. Hynicka's control was not without controversy.

By 1920, Cincinnati's principal Republican paper, the "Times Star", was calling for his resignation. "Hynicka is a political executive of unusual ability - but no man can live in New York and efficiently direct the course of the party organization in Cincinnati". Citizen unrest with the situation in Cincinnati was growing as well. In 1920, a group called the Cincinnatus Association was formed with the purpose of improving local government. Most of the members were Republicans, and many were also members of Hynicka's Executive and Advisory Committee. As a condition of belonging to the group, members examined an assigned area, and then reported back to the rest of the group.

On October 9, 1923 the Association sponsored a debate on the merits of a proposed tax increase. Speaking against the increase was a young Republican lawyer named Murray Seasongood, a man with commanding oratorical skills.Cincinnati was deeply in debt at the time. Of 43 cities with populations over 150,000 Cincinnati had the highest per capita bonded indebtedness. More than half of the income generated by taxes was needed to support the increasing debt. But in spite of the city's financial woes, Seasongood delivered a scathing attack on the proposed increase, and the Republican organization supporting it. The levy was solidly defeated in November, and Seasongood's talk came to be known as the "shot heard 'round the wards."

top^ The Upson Report and the Birdless Ballot League

The defeat of the tax levy sparked the political fires of discontent. In response to an increasing demand for an investigation of city and county government, the Executive and Advisory Committee of the Republican organization named a nine member subcommittee to conduct such a study. The subcommittee was headed by William Cooper Procter. If Hynicka thought that his organization would escape close scrutiny if his own team investigated, he was to be sorely disappointed.

Procter took his assignment seriously and named his own committee to do the study. This new group was chaired by another member the Executive and Advisory Committee, a man named George Warrington. Warrington's group hired an outside expert, Dr. Lent D. Upson of Detroit, Michigan, to do the investigation. The official report was called The Government of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, but it was popularly referred to as the "Upson Report".

During the months that Upson and his staff were assembling their report, an ever-vigilant Cincinnatus Association intensified their examinations into municipal affairs. It was to be one of these examinations that would create the spark for what later became the Charter Committee.

In January 1924, Henry Bentley presented a report before the Cincinnatus Association on the effect of the use of party emblems in the most recent election. Candidates were listed on the ballot under the appropriate national party emblem - the eagle for Republicans and the rooster for Democrats. A widespread form of voter fraud was to instruct illiterate voters to mark their ballots under a specific bird. Bentley's report recommended that the city's charter be amended to abolish use of the party emblems in city elections.

The Cincinnatus Association approved his suggestion by a two-to-one margin. But, because the vote had not been unanimous, a separate group was established to push for the change. That group was called the Birdless Ballot League. Their purpose was to compel "citizens to vote for men and not for birds."

top^ The Charter Committee Is Born

Six months later, on June 6, 1924, the Birdless Ballot League dissolved, and merged with another reform-minded group that wanted to revise the entire city charter. This new group was called the City Charter Committee, known today as the Charter Committee of Greater Cincinnati. In 1924 City Council was composed of thirty-two members, 26 of whom were elected from wards, and 6 at-large. Thirty-one members were Republicans, one was a Democrat. Out of all the councilmembers elected between 1913 and 1925, only five were Democrats. To run, candidates had to be either Republicans or Democrats. There was no provision for independents to run. In addition, candidates had to be nominated during a city wide primary. Officially, an elected mayor governed the city. Unofficially, Hynicka's organization had the real power.

top^ The Proposed Charted Amendment

The City Charter Committee's proposed charter amendment called for four main changes:

1) A nine-member city council elected at-large by proportional representation (Proportional Representation [PR] was a system of election in which the voter chose as many candidates as he wished, in order of preference. The system was unique in its ability to give each sizable electoral group representation proportional to its voting strength).

2) Nomination of candidates by petition, and the abolition of city primaries and party emblems on ballots; candidates' names were to be rotated on the ballots, as an added precaution against voter fraud.

3) The mayor-council form of government would be replaced with the city manager-council format; the mayor would be chosen by council and be a figurehead; administrative power would belong to a professional city manager hired by council.

4) A Civil Service System was to be instituted for all future appointments at City Hall, replacing the patronage system.

To the delight of the members of the City Charter Committee, the recommendations made by the Upson Report which was released July 26, 1924, were nearly identical to their own. The Executive and Advisory Committee, however, was not pleased. Although they had authorized the report, they refused to pay for it. Hynicka, too, was displeased. In September 1924 he dismissed the entire Executive and Advisory Committee. The proposed amendment to the charter was placed on the November 1924 ballot. In spite of last-minute attempts by opponents to confuse voters by offering two other amendments, the City Charter Committee's amendment passed overwhelmingly, with a vote of 92,510 for, and 41,015 against.

When a new charter was presented to the voters in 1926, incorporating suggestions made in the Upson Report and changes approved in the 1924 election, it too passed by a similar margin. The first battle, then, had been won. The system had been changed. But in order to insure that the changes made in the city charter would be carried out, the City Charter Committee became a permanent organization. In 1925, it elected a Board of Directors, drafted a constitution, and began the task of educating voters about the changes, selecting candidates to run for council, and establishing a ward and precinct organization to work for the Committee's candidates.

top^ The Record

In the past 60 years, Charterites have been on the winning side of City Council in 16 elections. Three times there was a 4-4-1 split of council, in which 4 Charterites, 4 Republicans and 1 Independent were elected. Republicans won a majority in eleven races. When the party was created in 1924, the city had the highest per capita bonded indebtedness in the country for cities of comparable size.

By 1932 and 1933, when the Depression had pushed cities around the country into bankruptcy, Cincinnati continued to meet its payroll in cash, increased the level of services offered to the public, and did so with no layoffs. By 1934, not only was the city's tax rate the lowest in the United States and Canada for cities of similar size, but also Cincinnati had the highest credit standing in the country. It ended both 1933 and 1934 with a surplus of one million dollars. Collier's Weekly, a popular magazine of the day, wrote that citizens concerned with their local civic condition had a duty to visit Cincinnati to learn what the Charter Committee had done to achieve such results. Charterite Russell Wilson was mayor during these formative years, from 1930-1937. He was a member of council from 1930-1946.

If reorganizing the city's political structure had been the goal for the 1920's, restoring the city's financial integrity was the goal of the 1930's. Once those goals had been met, Charter leaders began to plan for the city's future. At the heart of those plans was a document called the Master Plan. Published in 1948, it addressed every aspect of urban life. The Charter Committee, led by then-mayor Albert Cash, was aggressive in its support of the plan. One crucial aspect of the Plan was the development of expressways linking downtown Cincinnati with surrounding communities and neighborhoods. Before these expressways could be built, slums in the West End would need to be cleared away, and low-cost housing built as a replacement for the slums. Cash organized the Cincinnati Community Development Committee in 1948 to build this low-cost housing. Because the business community was a strong supporter of the proposed expressways, Cash received the support of many prominent local business leaders, including Fred Lazarus of Federated Department Stores, and Neil McElroy of Procter and Gamble.

Other important legislation which Charter councilmembers pushed for and got during the 1940's included smoke abatement, annual cost-of-living wage adjustments for city employees, and a job and wage classification system for city employees to insure similar pay for similar work in all divisions of city employment. In 1944 a bond issue was passed which provided for public improvements neglected during the war years, and also provided for the employment of returning World War II veterans, and men laid off during the war years. In the late 1940's, in addition to the creation of the City's Master Plan for future development, Charter leaders passed legislation which spurred the development of middle income housing, and multiple-family dwelling units. To make such construction profitable for the developers, the city subsidized the cost of installing public services. In addition to planning for the continued growth and prosperity of the city, Charter leaders were busily planning for the future of their party.

Albert Cash and Charles Taft, then Chairman of Council's Finance Committee, were the driving force behind the development of a program for Charter's future. In his memoirs, Forest Frank, former Executive Director of the Charter Committee, said that the original purpose of the Charter Committee had been to "end corruption in City Hall, install an efficient administration and take city employment out of politics. Those objectives were achieved, and Cincinnati was the prouder and richer for them." But the intervening 25 years had created a new set of problems for cities, and Charter leaders developed a program to deal with them.

The new program, implemented over the ensuing years, included: attracting selected new industries and employers to Cincinnati; developing the expressways and upgrading all highways; expanding park and recreation areas, particularly in densely-populated neighborhoods, constructing new sewers; controlling flash floods in the industrial Millcreek Valley area; controlling air pollution and converting streetcars to trackless operation. At the State level, the Charter Committee pushed for and got legislation which enabled it to redevelop deteriorating neighborhoods, act in housing emergencies and provide for more equitable distribution of taxes collected by the state for local government purposes. An important fiscal aspect of Charter's new program was legislation which enabled the city to use excess income for the City-owned Southern Railway to fund major capital improvements. One of the chief reforms instituted in 1924 was repealed in 1957.

After four previous unsuccessful repeal attempts, Proportional Representation was repealed in September 1957. Many felt that the repeal campaign was racially motivated to keep Charterite Ted Berry, a black, from becoming mayor. The repeal campaign was a short two months after the events at Little Rock, Arkansas. Following the repeal of PR, Berry lost his bid for council in both 1957 and 1959, although he had been one of the top vote getters in the 1955 election and had been elected to council four times before the repeal of PR. The repeal of PR and the defeat of Berry were not the only unhappy events of the late 1950s. In 1959 the Democratic party broke their informal coalition with the Charterites and decided to run their own slate of candidates.

From 1924 until 1959, the Charter Committee was made up of Republicans, Democrats and Independents united by their commitment to good government in Cincinnati. Democratic candidates who ran on the Charter ticket ran as Charterites before the split in 1959. After the split, with three parties in the councilmanic race, the Republicans succeeded in controlling council for the next twelve years. The Democrats failed to elect the majority they had sought by running a Democratic ticket.

It was 1969 before the Democrats and Charterites regrouped and formed a coalition. In that year Charterite leaders Leonard Sive and John Rauh organized a formal coalition with the Democratic party, in an effort to regain control of council. In that year's election the Coalition won four seats, but they won a majority in 1971 and maintained control until 1985. Although he Coalition was formalized in 1969, it was not until 1973 that the Coalition decided to split the two-year term of mayor between their two parties.

Although the 1960's were lean years for the Charterites because of the split with the Democratic party, Charter leaders continued to push for the plans outlined in their program for the city's future. Expressways were developed according to the Master Plan. Fountain Square was redeveloped, and there was a building boom in the housing industry. Charter pushed for neighborhood involvement in the budget process, and supported neighborhood organizations and activities.

In the 1970s Charter pushed for legislation which has helped make Cincinnati one of the most livable cities in the country. Among the programs supported by Charter are: Development of a maintenance policy, or inventory, of the city's physical plant, and the development of a plan to maintain it. Councilwoman Bobbie Sterne was the driving force behind this legislation. It served as a model for other cities around the country Development of a network of health clinics and recreation centers throughout the city An urban forestry program Promotion of the tourism industry in Cincinnati Preservation of the city's hillsides Establishment of Environmental Quality Districts to control development.

In the 1980's one of the most significant pieces of legislation proposed by Charter councilmembers was the Right-To-Know Ordinance. That ordinance mandates that employers dealing with hazardous materials must inform their employees of the dangers involved with those substances. That legislation has also served as a model for communities throughout the country.

Other initiatives taken by Charterites have been the creation of Historic districts to preserve the city's landmarks, and the creation of a Port Authority, established jointly with the county commissioners, to promote development by issuing industrial bonds. Charter has also been a strong supporter of tax abatement as an incentive for development. In 1984, Mayor Bortz' ambitious "Housing Agenda", in part the result of long h ours of work by a Charter government action committee, was promulgated by City Council.