We’re less than six months away from the New Orleans mayoral primary. Campaign war chests are growing, but so far, only a few candidates have thrown their hat into the ring.
In an opinion piece for Verite, Robert Collins, professor of urban studies and public policy, and Conrad Hilton endowed chair at Dillard University, ask, “Why is there so little interest in the job?”
Host Bob Pavlovich spoke with Collins about it on Louisiana Considered.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
BOB PAVLOVICH: Why does the small field dismay you?
ROBERT COLLINS: Well, it dismays me because democracies require participation. And participation means you want to have a robust field when you have an election, especially an election as important for a position as mayor, right? It’s the chief executive officer of the city. And if you look at the history of New Orleans, most of the time we have doubled it by now. We would have, you know, double digits in the race. Twenty years ago, right after Katrina, we actually had 22 candidates in that race. Granted, it was a sort of unusual time. We had an incumbent mayor, and he had 21 challengers. Now, if you look at basically every election since then, the numbers have been kind of gradually dropping off. And now, you know, we're kind of down to 6, and we also see the voters dropping out of the electorate. We see turnout rates actually dropping, you know, over the last 20 years. So it just sort of follows a pattern that people don't want to participate in the civic life of the city, and that that's problematic.
PAVLOVICH: Has that job lost its luster for younger politicians? Too much service required in the public service, perhaps?
COLLINS: I don't think it's that people don't want to go into public service. I think it's that specific job, and what I write about is that the job in general has lost its luster. Number one: It's a tough job, OK? Cities these days are challenged because, you know, starting in the 70s, we've seen the whole process that the sociologists described as white flight, you know, suburbanization. Cities have lost population, and when you lose population, you lose your tax base because cities get their money to provide public services from property taxes and sales taxes. But the problem is you still have the same amount of infrastructure that you had to support before those people left. And so then you have a deficit, and now you're struggling. Do you raise taxes on your citizens that are still remaining? That puts an unfair burden on them. Young, ambitious, charismatic politicians, they look at the job and they say, “That's not a great job.” A better job for them is if one day you want to end up governor, US senator, maybe president, they run for state legislature first, and then they run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
There was a study done at Boston University of the career prospects of mayors. You know, statistically speaking, the overwhelming majority of mayors, that is the last job that you will hold. The problem, Bob, is that being mayor is a dead-end job. Look at the mayors of New Orleans. I mean, the only mayor of New Orleans in the last 200 years that went to another office after serving as mayor was Moon Landrieu. You talk about the decline of neighborhood-based political organizations. LaToya Cantrell's election in 2017 was described as a huge grassroots effort. Is it now that those grassroots organizations are better suited for on the ground grassroots efforts as opposed to having lots of cash and being king and queen makers? Mayor Cantrell, before getting elected to city council, she was president of the Broadmoor Improvement Association. So that was one of the homeowners associations, one of the neighborhood groups that was very active right after Katrina.They opposed the infamous green dot map, and they were very active in planning efforts. Those still exist.
PAVLOVICH: Why is there so little interest in the New Orleans mayor's job? The two front runners at this point, Helena Moreno and Oliver Thomas, both have name recognition. Moreno has a war chest of over $1.5 million. Thomas, nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Are those the two things that make them front runners?
COLLINS: Sure, well, I think certainly in the case of Moreno, she's basically been running for mayor for the past four years. I mean, obviously, she didn't announce until recently, but it's been no secret that she's wanted to be mayor, so she's done a very effective job of going around raising money and basically committing a lot of the financial people in the city that give money to candidates. She basically locked up their support very early. So it was difficult for other candidates to get into the race, because by the time they got in, they might go visit one of those, you know, financiers, and then was, ‘Oh, you should have talked to me six months ago. Helena came and talked to me and she asked me to commit to her.’ Oliver does not have as much. So he is raising money, but Oliver's gonna argue that he already has city-wide name recognition, so he doesn't need as much money. But certainly for those two candidates, you would consider them the front runners, not only because of their money, but because they're both incumbent council members, so they're on the news regularly in their jobs as council members.
PAVLOVICH: Is that the feeder system now if you're going to be a mayor that you come through the city council ranks?
COLLINS: Sure, and that has been for, you know, many years. Obviously, we, you know, we've had some exceptions. We had Ray Nagin, who was a CEO, before he became mayor. But that's the exception to the rule.
PAVLOVICH: So Professor Collins, what would you tell a motivated young person who's interested in public service about running for council and mayor?
COLLINS: I would say, you know, I know it doesn't have the glamour. But the office of mayor has more direct impact on the citizens of a city than any other office, including more than governor or president. I mean, your mayor in concert with the city council basically determines, you know, the quality of your streets, of your sanitation, your garbage pickup, they appoint members of the water boards. They greatly influence your sewage system, your delivery of water when you turn on your faucet, flood control, you know, drainage. If you want to live in the city, and if you want to have a high quality of life, you've got to understand, you know, President Trump is not coming to save you, Governor Landry is not coming to save you. It is your mayor and your city council that, you know, the people closest to the ground, they're the ones that are gonna determine whether or not you receive the basic municipal services that you need to to feel comfortable and safe. We need young people to get involved in these elections either as candidates or as volunteers or as supporters because our quality of life really does depend on it.
