Qualls to Council Means Charter Party, Council Moribund

News that the term limited James Tarbell is stepping down from his Cincinnati City Council seat to make room for Roxanne Qualls inspires SWNID to new vistas from which to contemplate the profound sameness of Cincinnati City Council.

Qualls was a council member and mayor, under the old system where the mayor was the council member with the most popular votes, in the 1990s. Her gentle, inoffensive demeanor and blandly liberal political outlook established her popularity, rather like lowfat vanilla ice cream. But her period on council could also be described as among the least productive in the city's recent history. Those who have lived here awhile are likely to say that what ails the city in the new millennium is a consequence of what happened--or didn't happen (like reduction of taxes, improvement of city services, reorganization of schools, and redevelopment of the downtown core and neighborhoods)--in the 1990s.

What Qualls did manage was to support county efforts to build the stadiums. That move may be unpopular now, but we can't imagine the city's ongoing prosperity without the entertainment district that the riverfront has become, on both sides of the river, thanks to that capital investment.

The bigger story here is that Cincinnati City Council is being managed in a way that perpetuates the status quo. Term limits have forced established councilmembers to end their service. But now they resign a few months before their term is up, so that their party can appoint a successor who can establish some name recognition for the upcoming election and so hold the seat for the party establishment.

In this case, the party is the Charter Party, a Cincinnati local phenomenon arising from the reform movement of the 1920 that eschewed Republican bosses and their no-less-unattractive Democratic counterparts. Today the Charter Party is essentially the effete wing of the Democratic Party in Cincinnati, with little reason to exist except to provide a veneer of idealism to its pathetically few members.

That's not much to go on. So the Charterites need some powerful name recognition to maintain a seat or two. Qualls has it, so she's coming out of retirement to rejoin the Circus at Eighth and Race.

So this is what term limits has bought us. We wanted some turnover on council. What we got is a revolving door.*

But don't blame the politicians. Blame the voters who keep sending them back.

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*On SWNID's doorstep last night were fliers for two other recycled council candidates: Charles Winburn and Sam Malone. The maligned Malone, whose star fell with the charge of child abuse, seems to have hitched his star to the compulsively busy and noisy Winburn. It's not a pretty picture.