The other day, a popular diary here on Daily Kos raised questions about the peculiar American practice of electing judges (and prosecutors and sheriffs). Almost every state has either competitive races, some even partisan, or uses retention elections to allow voters to remove judges who do not perform as the electorate would like. In theory, this prevents judges from going beyond their duty and making law rather than interpreting it. In practice, as the diarist points out, it invites corruption and petty politics. And because very few voters bother to do their homework, it doesn’t even prevent obviously incompetent judges from keeping their seats.
I posted a comment arguing that all the same problems apply at least as much to special districts, like library districts, soil and water conservation districts, and fire protection districts. Many states, especially those out here in the West, make extensive use of these districts rather than having such functions overseen by general-purpose local governments. This wouldn’t be such a big deal but for the fact that voters are expected to have any idea which candidates on their ballots they should vote for, if the races are even contested at all.
Well imagine my surprise when this video from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight popped up on Youtube:
If that video doesn’t scare you, nothing can.
The proliferation of special districts to the point that we don’t even know how many we have raises the question of just what our general-purpose local governments like counties and cities are there for. At the state and federal level it’s the job of the legislature to oversee the executive departments, so why don’t county and city councils serve the same function at the local level?
Partly this may be because county and city councils tend to be absurdly small for the populations they serve. The largest county by population in the United States is LA County, California. Its population of approximately 10 million is larger than all but 7 or 8 states, yet the massive organization with a budget of over $20 billion and a payroll of 100,000 people is run by exactly the same kind of board of supervisors as every other county (except San Francisco). Five supervisors operate as legislature, executive, and quasi-judiciary. In other words, each supervisor has a constituency of roughly 2 million people, more than twice as many as a federal Representative.
If we want our special districts to be accountable, the easiest, most sensible way to do it is to make them departments of general-purpose local governments, yet our general-purpose governments are hardly more accountable than our “ghost governments”.
It’s ironic that a country that preaches the gospel of small and accountable government doesn’t even know how many of these little parasites there are or how much they spend. It’s time to shine the light on them and bring them under control.