A small council protects elites’ interests

In 1841, when the independent city of Halifax was created, there were 19 elected representatives for the city of 20,000 people. Were that ratio of population-to-elected representatives kept to the present, today we’d have 437 city councillors.

The debate over how many people should sit on the Halifax council raises many interesting issues, including: What’s the role of elected representation? Should councillors be more concerned with Big Picture issues affecting the entire municipality, or rather with the mundane details of city life in their own districts? What’s the optimal number of people for effective decision making? And what does “effective decision making” mean, anyway? Effective for whom?

We’re not the first to deal with these issues. These questions were very much on the minds of the people building the first modern representative democracies, both here in Canada—in fact, right here in Halifax—and, a few decades before, in the United States.

The US debate

Benjamin Franklin wanted his new country to have very small electoral districts, with representatives serving short terms. He also opposed a higher house, preferring that elected reps be very close to the people who elected them. The American debate on the matter is fascinating; it led to the creation of the very first proposed Constitutional amendment, known as Article the First, or the Congressional Apportionment Amendment. It was proposed by the first US Congress in 1789, and presented to the states. It was never ratified, but still could be, should enough states vote to approve it. (That’s not entirely far-fetched: Article the Second, dealing with pay for Congress, was also proposed in 1789, and finally became the 27th amendment to the US Constitution in 1992.)

The text of Article the First is somewhat tortured:

After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.

Depending on how it’s interpreted, were the amendment ratified, there would now be a US Congress of either 1,600 or 6,000 members. (The actual number is fixed at 435.) Franklin, for one, acknowledged that there could be a Congress of thousands of members, and liked the idea.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum was James Madison, who correctly saw universal suffrage and small electoral districts as a threat to the propertied class:

4. Should Experience or public opinion require an equal & universal suffrage for each branch of the Govt., such as prevails generally in the U. S., a resource favorable to the rights of landed & other property, when its possessors become the Minority, may be found in an enlargement of the Election Districts for one branch of the Legislature, and an extension of its period of service. Large districts are manifestly favorable to the election of persons of general respectability, and of probable attachment to the rights of property, over competitors depending on the personal solicitations practicable on a contracted theatre. And altho’ an ambitious candidate, of personal distinction, might occasionally recommend himself to popular choice by espousing a popular though unjust object, it might rarely happen to many districts at the same time. The tendency of a longer period of service would be, to render the Body more stable in its policy, and more capable of stemming popular currents taking a wrong direction, till reason & justice could regain their ascendancy.

In short, large districts would keep the rabble at bay.

In 1792, the new state of Kentucky was the last state to ratify Article the First. That made 11 votes for ratification, but at that time 12 votes were needed, so Article the First never became part of the Constitution.

The Nova Scotian debate

The birth of the independent city of Halifax came directly out of Joseph Howe’s “responsible government” movement:

Howe’s triumphant victory led to his election to the House of Assembly and leadership of the Reformers, who sought an end to oligarchical rule by the Council of Twelve and to advance constitutional reform. Halifax’s incorporation now became a major goal for Reformers. Attempts in 1838 and 1839 failed to get incorporation bills through the Legislature. Responsible government became the predominant issue dividing the Reformers under Howe from the Conservatives led by James W. Johnston. By 1840, party rivalry had resulted in such an impasse that Governor General Charles Poulett Thomson arrived in Halifax to take over the government and seek a solution. Thomson believed in municipal incorporation and had just overseen Montreal’s incorporation. He left no doubt that Halifax should also be incorporated. His solution to the constitutional divisions was a coalition government. A new lieutenant governor, Lord Falkland, had the task of creating such a ministry into which he was able to draw Howe. Falkland insisted that an incorporation bill be presented to the Assembly as a government measure, a constitutional innovation of the day, when almost all bills were drafted by Assembly committees or presented by individual members.

AN ACT TO INCORPORATE THE TOWN OF HALIFAX
In March 1841, the government tabled its incorporation bill, which on passage would have eighty-five clauses.34 It defined the boundaries of the “City of Halifax” to the limits of the peninsula and divided the city into six wards. The bill provided for a City Council, consisting of a mayor, six aldermen and twelve common council men. Each ward could elect three persons to the Council. Once elected, the twelve common councillors chose from among themselves, first who was to be mayor, and then six to be styled aldermen. In a carryover from the previous mixing of administrative and judicial functions, the mayor and aldermen became justices of the peace. In that capacity they assumed the functions of police magistrates and presided daily at police court. Moreover, the mayor, and one alderman in rotation, held court once a month to try civil cases.

What, however, brought forth vehement opposition from Howe’s fellow Reformer and member for Halifax Township, Thomas Forrester, was the severely restricted franchise. Voters for Assembly elections had to meet a forty shilling property qualification, but the incorporation bill raised this to £20. It included other provisions clearly intended to exclude as voters most of the shopkeeper class and confine the vote to those who could be trusted not to display any democratic tendencies. Moreover, no one could be mayor unless he owned real estate to the value of £1,000 and for aldermen the figure was £500. As Howe admitted, the bill restricted the franchise to an electorate of 800. Although he preferred a lower property qualification, a restricted franchise had been demanded by those in the government who formerly had opposed incorporation, but now at the behest of Falkland would support it as an acceptable compromise. When Forrester tried to amend the bill to give the vote to all householders, which would have increased the voter number to near 3,000, Howe made it plain that such an amendment, if passed, would endanger the whole bill.35 Attempts to amend failed and the bill went through as drafted by the Executive Council.

FIRST CIVIC ELECTION As well as a restrictive franchise, the bill further ensured against any democratic innovations by decreeing open voting, which required each voter openly to declare his vote to the presiding election officer. Such were the strongly-held feelings for the manly old practice of open voting that Nova Scotians would not have the secret ballot until 1870. Each voter in his ward could vote for three candidates to be elected as common councillors.

It’s clear from the above passage that the powers-that-be in Halifax were having much the same debate that the Americans had 50 years before. Howe, like Franklin, wanted an expanded franchise; Johnston, like Madison, was worried that too much democracy would threaten the propertied class.

The Americans compromised by creating a large-district Senate that ratified the workings of the small-district House. In Halifax, a more complicated, and much weaker compromise came about: the city was granted a watered-down form of democracy, but elite rule was protected by restricting the vote to just 800 men of wealth, and further protected by having lots of elected reps—even if one or two rabble rousers got elected, they wouldn’t have much power relative to the other councillors and aldermen. Sure enough, in the first election, 17 of the 18 winners were merchants, and the 18th was a lawyer.

I wonder what the current collection of “small councillor” advocates think of a city of 20,000 people having 19 elected reps. By comparison, today’s HRM, with a population of 450,000 or so, has 24 elected reps. The eligible voter list in 1841 was just 800, so they had one rep for every 42 voters. Today, there are about 260,000 eligible voters, resulting in one rep for every 10,833 voters.

Of course, as we’ve seen, the purpose of the large council in 1842 served much the same interests—those of the wealthy merchant class—as the desire for a small council serves today.

That’s because as the voting franchise was gradually extended, the check on the rabble was to make districts larger, with more voters in each—just as Madison had advocated. In 1913, Halifax government took a half-step away from direct governance of a larger number of representatives elected by a relatively small population, and instead created direct governance by a somewhat smaller number of representatives elected by a somewhat larger franchise:

Halifax still had a mayor (since 1849 directly elected annually by voters) and aldermen representing the six wards, but also four controllers who were elected biennially by the electors of the whole city. As with the mayor, the controllers were salaried and expected to act as an executive governing body, meeting on a daily basis to deal with civic problems. The mayor presided when the controllers met and when city council convened, whose powers and authority were now greatly circumscribed by those of the controllers. In short, the City’s business was conducted by a five man Board of Control meeting daily and not, as previously, by a large number of aldermen committees, dealing with finance, health, streets, charities, police etc.

Suffrage in Halifax didn’t become universal until 1963 (I’ll have more on this at some future date). I don’t know what or when changes were made, but by 1995, the old city of Halifax had 14 councillors and one mayor representing a population of about 120,000. The overall trend is clear: the more the voting franchise was extended, the larger the electoral districts became, and the fewer councillors. With amalgamation in 1996, some 54 elected representatives in the former cities of Halifax and Dartmouth, the town of Bedford and county of Halifax were reduced to just 24 in the new Halifax Regional Municipality. Some of today’s small council advocates would like to see that number further reduced to 15.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was plainly stated that district size reflected a concern for protection of the rights and privileges of the propertied class; elites don’t much use such plain language nowadays, but I’d argue that just below the surface is a business class disdain for the rabble, much as it always was.

This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2010.