New blocs gain power in Houston, Miami, San Francisco
Crime, poverty, racial tension. The symptoms are so depressingly similar from one urban center to another that they are often lumped together in one catchall phrase: "the problem of the cities." Politically, however, the cities make up a complex and ever shifting mosaic, as local elections across the nation demonstrated last week. In general, the cities' voters remained loyal to incumbents, and still more so to the Democratic Party. But there were strong crosscurrents of change in some big cities. Most notable: the sudden rise to prominence of new voting blocs in Houston, Miami and San Francisco, and the equally sudden demise of the tough-guy mayoral style in Cleveland, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.
Perhaps the most drastically changed city government is the one in Houston. Under prodding from the U.S. Department of Justice, which has been hearing loud complaints about discrimination from the oil capital's black and Hispanic minorities, Houston shifted from a city council of eight members, all elected at large, to one of 14 members, with nine chosen from separate districts and the remainder chosen at large. Blacks thereby increased their representation from one to three, and State Representative Ben Reyes became Houston's first Mexican-American councilman. In addition, three women stand a chance of winning runoff elections for council posts, though no woman has ever sat on that city's council before.
Incumbent Democratic Mayor Jim McConn, a suecessful builder, is expected to win the runoff, but the new council will change the basic style of Houston's government. It will almost certainly debate municipal issues publicly, rather than holding all discussions behind closed doors, as the old council did. It will be less attentive to downtown business interests, may be less anxious to annex white suburban areas until services in the center city improve, and will surely be more solicitous of poor areas. Vows Ernest McGowen, a black mailman who will represent Houston's northeast section: "People in office haven't heard from this side of town, but they will."
Miami became the only major mainland U.S. city to be governed primarily by Hispanics. Puerto Rican-born Mayor Maurice Ferre won a-fourth term, and Hispanics were assured of three posts on the five-member city commission. They retained two seats, and a runoff for another commission post will pit two Cuban-born candidates against each other. Indeed, twelve of the 16 candidates for top city offices were of Latin background.
The Hispanics hastened to assure their neighbors that the outcome meant, in Ferre's words, "no Latin takeover." Armando Lacasa, who campaigned successfully for election to the city commission with Spanish-language posters urging PROTECT OUR OWN, nonetheless proclaimed that the commission must offer "a piece of the action to everybody." Still, the election testified to the growing strength of "little Havana," Miami's huge community of Cuban exiles. Hispanics make up 55% of Miami's population and only 31% of the registered voters, but they trooped to the polls in impressive numbers. Miami's non-Hispanics, like most other Americans, did not.