Stephen A. Jones
September 1, 2009

Some years ago, when I was a newspaper reporter covering higher education in Michigan, I happened to visit Hillsdale College, where I met with a group of fresh-faced, bright and earnest young students who were eager to make a difference in the world.

They were energetic and committed to change — and they were confident of where the work needed to begin.

“The government does this,” they declared with great disapproval. “The government does that!” And they rattled off a litany of the government’s most egregious faults.

I listened while they made a number of substantial and valid points, all the while railing at “the government.” Then I asked them: “So who is the government?”

They were momentarily nonplussed by the question. When they regained their rhetorical stride, they made pro forma acknowledgements that in a representative democracy the government is, ultimately, the people — the voters who elect the public officials. But they struggled to resist the notion that the voters bore any real responsibility for the governmental mess they perceived.

I recalled that exchange recently as I pondered the impending Detroit city elections that will select a mayor to serve for the next four years and also select nine members for a special commission to rewrite the city’s charter.

There is no question that Detroit is in disastrous condition — physically, economically and politically. Unemployment in the city is well north of 20 percent, mortgage foreclosures have skyrocketed, and the infrastructure — roads, water lines, streetlights — is in serious disrepair. The collapse of the auto industry has devastated the city’s already bleak financial condition, forcing deep cutbacks in city services and pay cuts for city workers.

But even worse, in some ways, is the demoralizing saga of political corruption that has played out in courtrooms and in the media over the last two years.

Former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and former City Council Member Monica Conyers have resigned in disgrace after pleading guilty to felonies related to their official actions, and former Council Member Alonzo Bates is still in prison following his corruption conviction in 2007. It is unlikely that the last shoe has dropped in all of this.

Those of us who live in the city have clearly been ill served by the officials we elected. But those officials’ criminal behavior does not absolve the city’s voters of our responsibility for putting them in office in the first place and keeping them there, in some cases long after they deserved to be sent packing.

Kilpatrick’s escapades during his first term should have been enough to deny him a second term in office, but they were excused or overlooked by a majority of Detroit’s voters. And Bates displayed such arrogance and questionable judgment as a member of the Detroit School Board that he should never have been trusted with a seat on the city council.

There are signs that voters are stepping up to the plate. Mayor Dave Bing, who was elected in May to complete the final months of Kilpatrick’s unfinished second term far outdistanced his challengers for a full term in the August primary. Bing received about 74 percent of the primary vote, compared to about 11 percent for his top challenger, Tom Barrow, who ran unsuccessfully against former Mayor Coleman Young in 1985 and 1989.

Bing’s election in May over interim Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. was seen by many observers as evidence that voters were looking for a mature leader, untainted by the city’s political intrigues, to clean up the mess that Kilpatrick left behind. The primary returns suggest that the voters have confidence in Bing and continue to be committed to the course of change.

The voters in May also approved creation of a commission that will rewrite the city’s charter. Ambiguities in the charter’s provisions for removing officials from office complicated and frustrated the council’s efforts to remove Kilpatrick.

Hopefully, the charter commission will make changes that hold the city’s elected officials to higher ethical standards and make it easier to remove them when they don’t meet those standards. But even more than the mayoral election, the selection of charter commission members will test how willing Detroit voters are to pay attention and take an active role in getting the city’s government under control.

The 18 remaining candidates for the nine commission seats include some experienced and respected people. Freman Hendrix was former Mayor Dennis Archer’s top deputy, and Teola P. Hunter served a decade in the state House of Representatives and another decade as Wayne County Clerk.

But the field also includes candidates with less sterling credentials. John Johnson, for example, is the city’s former corporation counsel, but was charged in May with professional misconduct by the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission because of his actions during the scandal over Mayor Kilpatrick’s text messages.

Sorting the wheat from the chaff in the charter commission election will be essential if the quality of Detroit’s government is to improve. But that will also require a sincere and persistent effort by the voters to figure out who should be trusted with the job.

We will get the quality of government we demand — and commit ourselves to producing.

Stephen A. Jones is a Detroit resident and assistant professor of History at Central Michigan University. He is co-editor with Eric Freedman of African Americans in Congress: A Documentary History (Congressional Quarterly Press).