Slating Groups as Parties in a "Nonpartisan" Setting

• Author: Chandler Davidson,Luis Ricardo Fraga
• Published date: 01 June 1988
• Date: 01 June 1988
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591298804100210
• Subject Matter: Articles

SLATING GROUPS AS PARTIES IN A
"NONPARTISAN" SETTING
CHANDLER DAVIDSON, Rice University
and
LUIS RICARDO FRAGA, University of Notre Dame
ONPARTISANSHIP,
defined as an election system in which candi-
BI dates’ party designation is absent from the ballot, is one of several
N
so-called structural reforms,1 widely adopted during the Progres-
sive Era, which diminish the electoral power of the working classes and
ethnic minorities. Robert Lane (1959: 270-71) writes:
Municipal reforms of this nature: nonpartisanship, smaller city coun-
cils, the replacement of mayors by city managers, may serve admirable
technical purposes and in the long run be in the best interests of most
groups in the community - but they weaken the political ties of the dis-
organized and depressed groups in the community. And, in doing this,
they serve a strong, but usually repressed, interest of the community
&dquo;power elite,&dquo; whose focus is ostensibly upon the gains in efficiency and
honesty brought about by the reforms, but who profit from the political
apathy of the underdog.
Today, approximately 70 percent of all American cities select their
officials in nonpartisan elections (Sanders 1982: 181). Upper-class
businessmen, who typically introduced nonpartisanship and other turn-
of-the-century reforms, often knew their effects on the working class -
as did segments of the workers as well -
although the publicly stated
goal was the abolition of corruption and inefficiency (Weinstein 1962:
176-78; Hays 1964: 159; Holli 1974; Hawley 1973: 8-14).
While research has established the deleterious effects of nonpartisan-
ship on the representation of social minorites (Lee 1960: 181; Cornwell
1980: 17) and Blacks in particular (Banfield and Wilson 1966: 307; Kar-
nig and Welch 1980: 82), this fact has received less attention than the
consequences of nonpartisanship regarding social class, ideology, and
party. Scholars are vitually unanimous that nonpartisan systems in general
disadvantage the poor, the working classes, liberal voters, and Democrats
Received: September 24, 1985
First Revision Received: September 24, 1986
Second Revision Received: May 20, 1987
Third Revision Received: July 17, 1987
Accepted for Publication: July 31, 1987
NOTE: An earlier version of the paper was read critically by Charles R. Adrian, whom we
would like to thank for his generosity.
1

"Reform," as used in this essay, is defined as a change in the structure of city govern-
ment that Progressive Era proponents of the change described as beneficial, even if,
as subsequent research has shown, it was often deleterious to the interests of many
groups.

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374
(see, e.g., Adrian 1952: 774; Williams and Adrian 1959: 1063; Lee 1960:
55, 181; Salisbury and Black 1963: 590; Hawley 1973: 31, 126).2 What
explains this effect? One answer is that nonpartisan systems are tied to
other reforms whose bias is known. At-large elections, for example, which
are typical of such systems (Lee 1960: 26-7), disadvantage racial minori-
ties (Davidson and Korbel 1981; Engstrom and MacDonald 1981).
Another answer is that in a competitive partisan setting, the
Democratic party is the primary organization that educates and mobi-
lizes lower-income voters during campaigns whereas the Republican
party, while serving the same functions for upper-income voters, is as-
sisted by what Prewitt (1970: 143) calls &dquo;natural parapolitical organiza-
tions&dquo; - ostensibly nonpolitical civic associations and business and
professional groups to which the middle and upper classes belong. Be-
cause the less affluent are excluded, the Democratic label is crucial to
them as a cueing device. The absence of parties therefore disadvantages
the underdogs relative to the affluent.
In other words, organizations besides parties mobilize voters and they
affect the various ethnic groups and classes differently. Parapolitical or-
ganizations are one kind. Another is slating groups, organizations not for-
mally connected to national parties but which, like those parties, nominate
a list of candidates identified with a name such as &dquo;Citizens for Good
Government.&dquo;
To do justice to the complexities of local politics, we propose the
term ballot-nonpartisanship to refer to systems where candidates’ party
designation is not on the ballot. Organization-nonpartisanship, on the
other hand, refers to systems in which neither parties nor other nominat-
ing groups - such as nonpartisan slating groups - are active. (We as-
sume
that parapolitical organizations such as civic clubs, having partisan
bias but no nominating function, exist in virtually every locale of any
size.) Systems of ballot-nonpartisanship can then be classified according
to whether organization partisanship exists, and if it does, by the type
of nominating groups that are active. If no type is active, the system is
both ballot-nonpartisan and organization-nonpartisan. This is the kind
of &dquo;pure&dquo; system that the traditional explanation of nonpartisan bias
against underdogs seems to envisage: in it, parapolitical organizations
operating more or less in a vacuum exert their influence in behalf of the
more affluent voters.
But there are other sources of group-generated bias in ballot-
nonpartisan systems. Our theory is that slating groups potentially exert
a strong bias of their own
in the same direction as parapolitical organiza-
tions, particularly when one or more of these conditions exist: (1) an ab-
sence of
Democratic party activity such as local party executive committee
2
This "partisan bias of nonpartisanship,"
to borrow Hawley’s terminology, is apparently
known to party workers as well. Lee (1960: 111) found in two separate surveys of county
chairmen in California — where nonpartisan local elections are required by law — that
almost two-thirds of the Democrats preferred partisan local elections in both surveys,
while only 4 percent of the Republicans did in one survey and a third did in another.

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375
endorsements, which are sometimes made even in ballot-nonpartisan sys-
tems (Freeman 1958; Gilbert and Clague 1962: 326); (2) the presence of
only one slating group; (3) control of the slating group by businessmen;
(4) a several-year group lifespan, with stable leadership; and (5) the group’s
s
tendency to provide campaign funding, educate and mobilize voters, and
influence officials. Under these conditions slating groups will generate
a bias against the interests of the underdogs independent of the bias result-
ing from parapolitical organizations.
The history of the Progressive Era (1893-1920) indicates that reformers
advocating ballot nonpartisanship believed slating groups would have this
result in local politics. Political Scientist Frank J. Goodnow explained in
a 1900 National Municipal League program that nonpartisanship permit-
ted voters
in their
...
municipal elections either to break altogether from the State
and national parties and form separate municipal parties, or ... to force
the local organizations of the State and national parties to fight out city
elections on the basis of city issues. (Olson 1965: 5; emphasis added.)
Nonpartisan slating groups today may be the most common form of
Goodnow’s &dquo;separate municipal parties.&dquo; Businessman Richard S. Childs
(1949), a reformer known as the &dquo;father of city manager government,&dquo;
advanced a theory of &dquo;citizens associations&dquo; as a means for mobilizing
enlightened leadership. Starting from the premise that even in a nonpar-
tisan, council-manager city it is possible for &dquo;self-advanced mediocrities&dquo;
to win office, he proposed &dquo;citizens associations&dquo; comprised of in-
dividuals &dquo;who have no private axes to grind and whose ability and self-
lessness are widely recognized....&dquo; His description of ideal leaders
suggests that he had in mind one leadership group per city, comprised
largely of gentlemen of property and standing. &dquo;To be able to lead,&dquo;
Childs wrote, &dquo;they must be leaders; the three tailors of Dooley Street
can’t do it!&dquo;
The association’s functions were &dquo;to watch and review the perfor-
mance of councilmen and, when election approaches, it can urge good
incumbents to run again&dquo;; &dquo;single out citizens and ask them to run&dquo;; &dquo;en-
gage to make the campaign easy for them by raising the campaign funds
and providing experienced guidance&dquo;; and &dquo;assemble a balanced ticket
and focus the good government vote on its candidates, preventing its scat-
teration to other good candidates, which might let in political ad-
venturers. &dquo;
In his analysis of 48 cities with the nonpartisan council-manager plan,
Childs discovered that &dquo;something of the sort&dquo; of organization he
described existed in 23 cities scattered among eight states in widely sepa-
rated areas of the country.
No
subsequent research has determined the extent of this type of slat-
ing group. Lee’s study of 192 nonpartisan California cities revealed that
in 33 percent of them, and in 65 percent of those between 25-50,000
population, candidates ran on slates, although apparently not all slates
were backed by continuous groups (1960: 127-8). Freeman (1958: 283)

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376
speculates that multiparty local systems are the most common party sys-
tem in America. However, research on nonpartisanship reveals numer-
ous examples of single-slating-group systems similar to those described
by Childs, suggesting that they are common. (E.g., Hayes 1953: 43-6; Mar-
tin 1955: 282; Williams and...