There is an old saying, “all politics is local”, but increasingly politics has been nationalized. This increasingly nationalized politics has been attributed, at least in part, to the decline of local journalism. With fewer options for news coverage people replace their lost local options with national news organizations like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, or Fox News. In the event that these outfits do cover local news it is local for them—The New York Times will cover New York political news, but not a mayoral race in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
The rise in national media, and corresponding decline in local journalism, has quite a few effects beyond the nationalization of politics as Joshua Darr writes for FiveThirtyEight, “in the absence of local news, people are more likely to vote for one party up and down the ballot”. Not only are voters becoming more partisan in their political preferences, but voters’ views have become calcified as they are less likely to switch their vote between parties from one election to the next. And the effects do not end there; Darr continues, explaining that, “a growing body of research has found that government is worse off when local news suffers. In fact, inadequate local news has been linked to more corruption, less competitive elections, and weaker municipal finances and a prevalence of party-line politicians who don’t bring benefits back to their districts”. 
Keeping the spirit of the old saying alive, I wanted to take a look at local politics. Specifically in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland, and Ohio more broadly, was not spared from these national trends. According to the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, from 2004 to 2019 Ohio lost 39% of its newspapers and saw a 51% decrease in circulation. Ohio does not have any counties without a newspaper, but has 38 with only a single newspaper. Perhaps predictably then, Ohio sees its highest voter turnout for Presidential elections—an average of 69% turnout from 2000 to 2020. This falls to 59% for Ohio US Senator, down to 57% for Ohio US Representatives, down to 48% for Ohio Governor, and down to 54% for the Ohio General Assembly. Note that the General Assembly sees a higher turnout than Governor because half of the General Assembly elections fall during Presidential election years when turnout is generally higher and Governor is always during non-presidential years—the General Assembly average for non-Presidential years in the Ohio House is 46% and 44% in the Ohio Senate.
Ohio has also, to some extent, seen calcification. In modern American politics Ohio has been considered a swing state and a bellwether for Presidential elections. From 1964 to 2016 no President had won the White House without winning Ohio; the longest streak of any state. That streak came to an end when Ohioans cast their ballots for Donald Trump in 2020, beating Joe Biden in the state by 8% but losing the Presidency.
Ohio has also certainly seen its fair share of corruption during this period. From the State's unconstitutional school funding system to the $117 million dollar charter school choice fraud scheme; to the $60 million bribery scheme involving First Energy and Ohio Speaker of the House, Larry Householder to pass a bill to bail out the energy company; to Ohio's redistricting process which resulted Ohioans voting in 2022 using unconstitutional district maps after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the state district maps unconstitutional five times and federal district maps unconstitutional twice. 
Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, has lost ten newspapers since 2004 according to UNC. With only five papers remaining, the county has one daily paper—The Cleveland Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com. However, that would have to be considering its electronic, non-union version, Cleveland.com. The Plain Dealer has cut back its print distribution to Wednesday and Friday – Sunday. What’s more, The Plain Dealer was the home of Local 1 Newspaper Guild, the first newspaper guild in the country, before it fired the remaining union staff in the spring of 2020.
Consequently, Cleveland has seen corruption in its local governments as well—as council-people improperly awarded city contracts or misappropriated funds, and corruption and fraud was uncovered in County Executive Office.
There is a silver-lining though, non-profit newsrooms like The Land and Signal Cleveland, and the launch of a local network of Marshall Project, have stepped up to fill the void left by the loss of local legacy news organizations.
The broader effects of the decline in local news, and subsequent nationalization of politics, has been felt in Cleveland as well. From 2010 to 2020 Cleveland’s average voter turnout in Presidential elections is 58%. That average falls to 33% in non-Presidential years. Local elections in Cleveland fall even further to an average of 22%. See Figure 1 in the support linked below for further details.
A couple important items to note about Cleveland elections. First, Cleveland elects its Mayor and its full 17-member City Council on the same cycle to four-year terms. These elections are held on odd years, where the state and federal elections are held on even years. Second, until the most recent Mayoral election in 2021, Frank Jackson had been re-elected four times and had served as Mayor for 16 years. One might reasonably assume that by the time of Mayor Jackson’s fourth election in 2019 voters’ enthusiasm would have waned and turnout would have fallen, weighing down the average turnout above, but turnout was 23% in 2021 just as it was in 2019. Also worth noting, turnout in the Mayoral elections is slightly higher than turnout for City Council members.
As the discussion above would suggest, I think part of this can be explained by the decline of local journalism in Cleveland and the associated broader national trends. However, I’m not sure a 36% differential in turnout between Presidential elections and local elections in Cleveland is entirely explained by a decline in local news coverage.
I have also looked at the effects of gerrymandering in Ohio. Earlier I pointed to the decline in local journalism to explain the decrease in voter turnout as you move down the ballot. What that does not explain, however, is why Ohio’s turnout at 69% is consistently below the national average of 86% when the decline in local journalism is being observed nation-wide. It is true that gerrymandering is pervasive in this country as well, though many states have adopted independent, non-partisan redistricting commissions to prevent gerrymandering in their state. According to FiveThirtyEight redistricting in eight states had an independent commission control the 2022 redistricting process. In another nine states control was split between the two parties. That means that approximately 42% of districts were not drawn by partisans from a single party. For the most part, where an independent commission controlled the redistricting process fairer maps were drawn, and more competitive districts which leads to higher turnout.
Looking at Ohio’s four largest cities—Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo—voter turnout is lower than statewide turnout, year-to-year (Figure 2). This is despite generally higher registration rates in these cities (Figure 3). Likely due, in part, to voter disenfranchisement resulting from gerrymandering. But because there is rarely ever just one cause is complex systems, the increasing nationalization of politics also likely has an impact. What political attention is not taken up by national politics the State has seemingly gleefully stepped in to claim. From local ordinances on guns, fracking, traffic cameras, and residency and construction projects the State Government has ignored the home rule provision within the State Constitution which is supposed to give local governments the latitude to self-govern, and overturned these local ordinances. When this happens repeatedly, in cities across the state, and for a broad spectrum of laws—including the seemingly mundane and inconsequential laws like a flavored tobacco ban—voters could be forgiven for getting the impression that local governments hold no real power in the state and, therefore, local elections are of little consequence.
While I do believe all of these factors play a part in the depressed voter turnout in Cleveland, still, I do not believe they are enough to fully explain what is going on with turnout in Cleveland. According to UNC each of the counties of Cincinnati, Columbus, and Toledo have lost local news rooms and each only has one remaining daily newspaper. Each city has also been similarly subjected to gerrymandering by the Ohio General Assembly and overreach by the state government's violation of home rule. However, when comparing voter turnout in Cleveland to its peer cities it lags behind (Figure 2) despite having comparable registration rates (Figure 3). This suggests something unique is going on in Cleveland.
As mentioned earlier, Cleveland elects its Mayor and City Council in off-year elections. Moving the municipal elections to correspond with statewide and national elections would almost certainly help improve turnout in the Mayoral and City Council elections. However, the issue, as I see it, is a bit more subtle; after all, Cleveland is already lagging its peers in turnout for statewide and national elections and those peer cities also hold their municipal elections in off-years. The difference is, Cleveland only elects its Mayor and City Council. Cincinnati, Columbus, and Toledo also elect a City Attorney and a City Auditor. Furthermore, 93% of school boards in the US are elected rather than appointed, but all nine members of the school board of Cleveland Metropolitan School District are appointed by the Cleveland Mayor.
There is an irony here. Municipal elections in Cleveland are seemly unimportant because Clevelanders are only voting for the Mayor and a Council person, whereas if they were also voting for a City Attorney, City Auditor, Police Chief, School Board, or some other positions within the government the election may seem more consequential. However, because Clevelanders are not able to elect these officials that power is retained by the Mayor—power that is concentrated in this position making the selection of the Mayor that much more important. If Clevelanders select an incompetent Mayor who, in turn, selects an inept City Attorney, City Auditor, or Police Chief and appoints unqualified School Board Members, that has a much more far-reaching effect than if Clevelanders were to elect an incompetent Mayor while selecting qualified candidates down ballot.
Furthermore, Cleveland has a history of undemocratic norms and traditions within its politics. Cleveland has long been a Democratic city, and behind the elected
officials runs a political machine with a few individuals
pulling the levers of power. The leaders of this Democratic Machine
select their preferred candidate for County Executive, Cleveland
Mayor, Congressional Representative, or whatever other position they
sought to fill and the establishment would fall inline behind. Endorsements would follow, PACs would be established, fundraisers planed, money raised, speeches broadcast in support of the selected candidate. Outgoing Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, ex-Mayor Frank Jackson, and ex-Congresswoman Marcia Fudge were all beneficiaries of this Machine. However, Justin Bibb defeated the Machine's preferred candidate, Kevin Kelley, to become the current Mayor of Cleveland. And when the Machine failed to coalesce behind a candidate to run against Chris Ronayne for County Executive, Ronayne won that election. Though only a couple of elections over a few years time, these recent events hopefully suggest the collapse of the Democratic Machine in Cleveland in favor of a more democratic process.
Cleveland City Council has its own set of undemocratic tendencies. One such norm; if a Council Member vacates their seat in the second half of their term the Member will recommend their replacement to serve out the remainder of their term for appointment by the Council instead of holding a special election to fill the vacancy. Phyllis Cleveland did this when she recommended Delores Gray to fill her remaining term representing Ward 5 in May of 2021 and Matt Zone did this when he recommended Jenny Spencer to serve his remaining term representing Ward 15 in September of 2020. When the vacancy comes in the first half of the Member's term the member still recommends a replacement for appointment by the Council, however, a special election will be held the following November. This is the case for Brian Mooney's recommended replacement, Danny Kelly.
This matters because incumbency comes with electoral benefits. For one, it likely means an easier primary election for the recommended replacement who has, at least, the implicit endorsement of party establishment. Second, a current councilperson will likely have higher name-recognition due to their position on city council. In a low-information election—which local Cleveland elections are due to the state of local media—name-recognition is a benefit which a potential challenger likely does not have and will likely struggle to gain.
In addition to council members selecting their heir to inherit their seat, City Council has been closed to Clevelanders. Constituents were able to contact their Council Members directly, and meetings were open to the public. However, for most of the existence of City Council Clevelanders have been unable to make public comments during City Council meetings. That finally changed in October 2021.
The opening of City Council to public comment at least appears to be the opening of the Cleveland government to broader civic involvement. The new Mayor of Cleveland, Justin Bibb, has also seemed to embrace citizen involvement in the government. During his campaign he publicly supported Issue 24 which would create a civilian oversight board of the city police department. Mayor Bibb also restarted the Urban Forestry Commission that had been defunct since the early 2000s, which includes three seats on the 15 member board for residents. Advocate groups have also been pushing for the adoption of a participatory budgeting process, specifically as it relates to federal stimulus dollars distributed in response to COVID-19, though there have been no concrete steps toward making this a reality.
While improvements have been made, the take away here is the city government has not only not asked, but not welcomed civic engagement from the residents of the city. One could point blame to the national and statewide factors discussed above; and for the most part I would agree! But it should be no surprised that when it comes time for Clevelanders to vote in municipal elections less than a quarter turn out when the city government is dismissive of its constituents. Cleveland has a weak culture of civic engagement, and that starts with the foundation of local elections—this is where government is supposed to be most responsive and citizens can be heard and see the effects of their petitions.
"I think that people should be coming and engaging with us anyway. And then I think that a council member like myself would be willing to listen and try to implement some of their ideas. But just to set aside a pot of money, I don't think that is good governance."
Council President Griffin did support the rules change to allow public comment at Council Meetings back in 2021, so he has supported opening additional avenues which residents can communicate directly with City Council.
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