Dallas’ city charter requires the mayor and council members to run and, hopefully, govern without party labels.
The reason is that nonpartisan leadership at the level of government closest to residents encourages elected officials to work in the best interests of their communities, not in their own political interests or those of a party.
It’s the idea that potholes aren’t partisan. The adoption of the nonpartisan council-manager form of government in Dallas in 1931 has gone a long way toward building civic cohesion while sparing us from much of the nonsense, not to mention corruption, that accompanies party fidelity.
But that philosophy seems to be lost on Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, who in recent days has gone out of his way to remind everyone that he used to be a Democrat and is now a Republican. His recent comments on a misguided effort to recall him focused on personal grievances and self-congratulations, including a headline on a press release proclaiming that Democrats Utterly Fail in Effort to Recall Mayor of America’s Largest Republican-Led City. (For the record, it wasn’t a Democratic Party effort but the disorganized notion of a local activist.) A few days later, the mayor announced that he voted for Donald Trump in the GOP primary after saying last month that he was committed to “retiring Joe Biden.”
We don’t care whether Johnson’s political preference is an “R” or a “D.” That’s his prerogative. We do care that the mayor be respectful of the spirit of our charter, which is to avoid using his nonpartisan office as stilts for his own political reaching. Plenty of mayors have been in one camp or the other. But, by and large, they have put aside their party work during their service at City Hall.
Dallas needs its mayor focused on the right things in the right ways in Dallas. In our form of government, the mayor must constructively use soft powers of persuasion among his colleagues around the council horseshoe. Johnson has spurned this important part of the job and instead seems eager to turn the mayor’s office into a partisan pulpit, which is not what Dallas residents want. His increasingly divisive and self-serving rhetoric might boost his private political agenda, but it interferes with what should be his focus on public leadership.
The power of the mayor’s job is in agenda-setting, coalition-building, appointing people and cheerleading major initiatives. In the best of times, it is a tough, frustrating task. It becomes more difficult when the mayor overtly waves a political flag.
Dallas is about to embark on a search for a new city manager, an effort which will be more difficult if the mayor’s desire to be a partisan elected official in a council-manager system makes worthy candidates think twice about the job. Johnson’s second and final term as mayor doesn’t end until 2027. His relationship with interim City Manager Kim Tolbert will be closely watched by potential city manager candidates for signs of dysfunction.
If Johnson doesn’t change the path he is on, his relevance as mayor will be at risk. Huge number of voters in Dallas will be alienated from him as their leader. Many already are. The council will have little choice but to work around him, rather than with him.
It is unfortunate Johnson has chosen to lean so heavily into his partisan ambitions. They are costing him the chance to lead his city.
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