If you ask most Republicans and many independents whether they believe government and bureaucracy ought to get bigger at a local, state, or (especially) federal level they will say “no.” Government ought in many cases to stay the same size or to shrink. The most extreme conservatives who are still recognizably part of a modern system believe that the federal government ought only to be responsible for the military, enforcement of laws, and foreign affairs.
Democrats and progressives, on the other hand, support the expansion of government and bureaucracy. They feel that government ought to play a bigger role in supervising and regulating many aspects of modern life, from housing, to health care, to how businesses interact with the environment.
Few Republicans or Democrats in the United States would disagree with this characterization. It is one of the central, defining characteristics of political philosophy here; whether one feels government isn’t doing enough and ought to get bigger (and how), or whether one feels government is doing too much and ought to get smaller (and how).
I’m coming to believe that this isn’t how things work in Branford, my home town.
On the town’s Rules and Ordinances (R&O) Committee, I have some insight into the thinking that goes into the role of local government, limiting or expanding executive power through commissions and committees, allowing government to collect more money through regulation, or keeping the role of government small and unintrusive.
The great struggle on R&O in 2022 was updating the town’s ordinances regarding its tree warden and Forestry commission. This came about because of a freak accident in which a car was damaged and (thankfully) nobody hurt or killed. After many hours of debate and discussion, edits and revisions, R&O was able to update the ordinance in such a way that the town and the Tree Warden’s responsibilities were more clearly delineated. The Republicans felt that maintaining the town’s trees and funding that maintenance was a mistake, as it would require a bigger government and spending more money and could open the town to liability (managing trees means unmanaged trees are still the town’s responsibility), and, in addition, the town had one fine without it up until this point. Democrats (I am one) were more open to the idea of a European-style forest management plan, though that would require spending more money. The Republicans won out; the Tree Warden and management of the town’s trees (privately held and publicly held) looks very much as it did decades ago. Government was not expanded, little or no additional money will be spent.
In 2023, R&O sat to discuss three proposed ordinances: a ban on leafblowers that use a certain type of gas-powered engine, the establishment of a new Fair Rent commission required by the state of Connecticut, and the establishment of a new Harbor Commission.
After discussion among the committee members and the half-dozen RTM members in attendance, and taking into consideration the opposition of several citizens who spoke out against the ordinance prohibiting two-stroke gas-powered motor-powered leaf blowers, the committee voted 3-2 not to bring the ordinance discussion further. So Branford will not have such an ordinance.
I was interested in the discussion, because limiting environmental pollution (noise, chemical) is an important issue — some would even say an urgent issue. The citizens who arrived to speak were not representative of Branford’s entire population, but they were passionate about the subject, and united in their opposition to the ordinance. To summarize their concerns about the ordinance: they felt that the town should not be dictating what citizens own and operate, they felt that the technology of electric leaf blowers and mowers was not sufficiently advanced for such a law. They stated their case reasonably and passionately, and were in general supportive of electric technology, but felt that if the town could ban these devices the town could also easily ban gas powered cars and generators, and felt that other equipment was also noisy and that the town would be compelled to ban that equipment as well. The citizens opposed to the ordinance also were worried about damaging local businesses.
In general, one could say that these people endorsed the view that what one would expect from Republicans or Independents — a desire for the town not to interfere with or intrude on the behavior of responsible citizens.
I am loathe to endorse new ordinances or expand government (yes, as a Democrat), but as a progressive and someone who cares about the environment, I do see the utility in creating some mechanism for encouraging people to abandon inefficient gas-powered devices as soon as practical. We may be reaching the 1.5 Celsius threshold at which global warming becomes irreversible in the short term by 2027, years rather than decades from now, and doing what we can to slow that feels prudent. Not everyone can afford electric cars or electric mowers or leaf blowers; not everyone can afford solar panels. Finding ways to do what we can as individuals and collectively is the only hope we have left, really, and for that reason I was disappointed that the conversation about the ordinance did not continue, especially because I think there might have been ways to reach common-sense accommodation, such as issuing bans while grandfathering existing equipment used by individuals and businesses in.
The conversation next turned to establishing a Fair Rent Commission that is required under Connecticut state law. This Commission must be put into effect by us (Branford’s population is above 25,000) by July 1 of 2023 and requires an ordinance to lay out conduct, so after a brief discussion, the R&O Committee elected to re-refer the matter (to take it up at another time) to give members more opportunities to research the best way to do that.
For the purposes of this essay, it’s probably worth mentioning that the Republicans did not seem enthusiastic about creating this commission. I’m not sure how important it is that Branford have such a commission, in spite of its size. While it seems unquestionable to me that a city ought to have such a commission, that there ought to be a political forum in which to discuss such an important issue (access to housing and food are civilization-killers; more revolutions have been started over injustice when it comes to the former and latter than any other reason), I have not heard people describe the problem of rent in Branford or other towns. This is because, I think, the type of people looking to live in Branford could just as easily live elsewhere in Connecticut, so the market resolves the problem of unreasonably high or “unfair” rents (one can just go a town or two over and save hundreds or more in rent). In any case, support for or opposition to the ordinance is irrelevant, it’s required by the state.
But the last matter before R&O last night — the establishment of a Harbor Management Commission — was very interesting. Branford’s Harbor Master, Vincenzo Suppa, laid out a convincing and compelling vision for establishing a group of expert citizens to help manage our rivers and shoreline (Branford’s, the longest on the Long Island Sound) along a model recently adopted by other towns. He proposed to fund that group and its activities — actions as diverse as the retrieval and removal of sunken boats, to sweeping the water for underwater hazards such as submerged pilings and other dangers to boats and swimmers, to unforeseen catastrophes — by levying an annual permitting fee for docks and moorings (the permits are currently free but largely unmonitored and unenforced), and allowing an enforcement mechanism that could seize unlicensed moorings (which tend to be expensive). The citizens who opposed the 2-stroke engine ordinance and were skeptical of the Fair Rent Commission were supportive, the mayor was supportive, everyone (myself included) felt that Mr. Suppa’s proposal was a good one.
What was interesting about it — to me, certainly, and I would think to anyone hoping to create in Branford a consistent approach to policy and governance — was that the same arguments used against the creation of a mechanism for more effectively and efficiently managing Branford’s substantial forests (it’s too expensive, we’ve never done this before, doing this creates legal liability for us in the future, we’re making government bigger, nobody wants people coming on their property uninvited to cut down trees) were totally absent from Republicans when it came to doing something very similar with rivers and waterways. Not a single person raised their hand in protest, or to offer this context. One of the citizens who said that passing an ordinance on leaf blowers could lead to dictatorship smiled and said that the Harbor Management Commission was a good idea. The tenor of the discussion was that we should move forward with empowering the commission with speed, and figure out the details later as we had time. We voted to rerefer and continue the discussion.
My question is this: why do Republicans and Independents, who are in general loathe to expand government in any way without throwing up great obstacles and interrogating every possible potential pitfall, from legal liability to the town, to the objectively miniscule (I’d even say nonexistent) threat of dictatorship at the town level, not see any problems with that when it comes to the waterways and shore? What is it about this hazy idea (not even a plan, really), in which few specifics exist, that so compels and animates action?
As we move forward to empower the town to do something it has not done before during its centuries-long history — an action that I see as useful and necessary, for the same reason I was willing to entertain a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers and an expanded Forestry Commission — I would like to encourage my fellow citizens to ask themselves whether they like big government or small government, and why.
The Local Blind Spot 