The Economist Europe – July 22-28, 2017

The EconomistJuly 22nd 2017 United States 29

“I

LITERALLY went home every night

for the first three months and said,

“Oh, my God, what have I gotten myself

into?’,” Boston’s mayor, Marty Walsh, re-

cently told the Boston Globe. Jorge Elorza,

Providence’s mayor, remembers sitting in

his office after he was sworn in and won-

dering “how do we begin?” Many mayors

are skilled campaigners, but being in office

requires a different set of qualities. Andy

Burnham, Greater Manchester’s mayor

and one of the attendees, was in post just14

days when his city endured a terrorist at-

tack. American companies spend around

$15bn a year in leadership development,

but there is little, if any, training for public-

sector chief executives.

Michael Bloomberg, New York’s former

mayor, hopes to change that. Thanks to a

$32m gift his charity, Bloomberg Philan-

thropies, along with Harvard’sBusiness

and Kennedy Schools, has created a year-

long programme designed for serving

mayors. The inaugural cohort began study-

ing on July 17th. Forty mayors, 30 of them

from American cities, including the may-

ors of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Phoenix

and Mobile, spent three days back at

school in New York.

This being Harvard, the mayors looked

at case studies, on subjects from a sand-

wich-shop keeper in Amsterdam who was

struggling to navigate his city’s bureauc-

racy, to the use of data in a blight-stricken

city in Massachusetts. John Giles, mayor of

Mesa, Arizona, took pages and pages of

notes. The school for mayors is not about

promoting any particular policy, though

some of Mr Bloomberg’s grander accom-

plishments, such as the new Cornell Tech’s

applied sciences campus, and the High

Line, an elevated park which helped spark

development in a neglected part of the city,

were presented asexamples. Instead, the

programme is more about how to think

like a CEO. In Providence, says Mr Elorza,

the pervading culture used to be that you

had to know a guy to get things done. He

streamlined permitting, reducing the num-

ber of application forms from 44 to nine.

He copied from other cities, installing a 311

system, a municipal customer-service line

like the one in New York, and appointed an

innovation officer, as Pittsburgh has, to try

to change the government’s culture.

Government does not need to be run

like a business, but the curriculum devel-

opers thought that mayors could benefit

from expertise supplied by academics and

by actual managers. Running a city is hard-

er than running a company, says Mr

Bloomberg: the media spotlight is glaring,

pressure from unionised workforces can

make it hard to cut even bad programmes

and regulation can throttle innovation.

The sessions, staged in a Harvard class-

room-like setting, with tiered desks in a u-

shape, were closed to the press. But during

breaks the mayors asked each other for

their takes on issues like drug legalisation.

Some Democratic mayors in Republican

states admitted the battle to curb guns was

lost. Others talked about growing inequali-

ty in their cities. Mayors from all over the

world complained about the uselessness

of the federal government.

Mr Bloomberg reckons there is a sense

of urgency in cities over the lack of leader-

ship coming from the federal and state gov-

ernments. Meanwhile, mayors are finding

that their responsibilities extend beyond

policing and filling potholes. One mayor

recalled a constituent coming to him for

marital advice. Mayors are also having to

face national and international problems

that go beyond their formal authority, such

as immigration and climate change. There

are three major political parties in the Un-

ited States, says Mr Elorza: Republicans,

Democrats and mayors. And mayors do

not have time for ideological disputes. 7

Cities

School for mayors

NEW YORK

New York’s former mayor funds a class

for other hizzoners

Presidential appointments

The missing government

I

T IS almost as if Republicans did not

control both Congress and the White

House. President Donald Trump has

struggled to carry out one of his basic

duties, which is to fill government posts.

The president blames supposedlyobsti-

nate Senate Democrats, against whom he

regularly rages on Twitter. “Dems are

taking forever to approve my people,

including Ambassadors. They are noth-

ing butOBSTRUCTIONISTS! Want ap-

provals”, he fumed on June 5th. “They

can’t win so all they do is slow down &

obstruct!”, he added on July 11th.

Mr Trump’s administration has yet to

get around to nominating many of the

officials who run the federal government.

Up until July 15th, Mr Trump had put 210

names to the Senate for consideration,

according to numbers provided by the

Partnership for Public Service, a non-

partisan group that tracks bureaucratic

hiring. The data do not count military or

judicial appointments. At the same point

in their presidencies, Barack Obama had

put forward 369 names, George W. Bush

had 315 and Bill Clinton had 275.

It is true that the Senate has taken, on

average, 45 days to confirm one of Mr

Trump’s nominees compared with 37

days to confirm one of Mr Obama’s. That

difference does not account for the vast

discrepancy in confirmations—49 for Mr

Trump compared with 203 for Mr Obama

by July 2009. Part of the problem is that

the majority of Mr Trump’s nominees

were submitted in the past two months—

while the Senate was consumed with a

health-care bill to replace Obamacare.

Transitions of power are messy: a new

administration must pick4,000 new

political appointees, nearly 1,200 of

whom mustbe confirmed bythe Senate.

Neglecting to do so leaves hollowed-out

agencies without critical staff. At the State

Department only two of 26 senior posts

have been filled. Twenty-two of the 24

unfilled posts, like under-secretary for

arms control, do not yet have a nominee.

Important ambassadorial postings, like

in Saudi Arabia and South Korea, are

unfilled. Things are only a little better at

the Department of Defence, where just

five of18 senior posts have been filled.

Presidential lethargy, not Democratic obstinacy, is to blame

Bill Clinton( 1993 ) GGeorge W. Bush ( 2001 ) Barack Obama ( 2009 ) Donaldld Trump ( 2017 )

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Source: Partnership For Public Service *Excludes military and judicial appointments as well as hold-overs

Step up

United States, presidential nominations submitted to Senate in first six months of term*

Nominations

of which:

confirmed