Government Study Commissions and County Home Rule

Abstract

Abstract Most of the state action on county home rule occurred in the 1970s and most of the 149 charters were adopted in the 1970s. Although there is still interest in home rule, it is largely confined to a few states and specific counties. In Pennsylvania there are six county home rule charters, and five of the six were approved in the 1970s. Only home rule for Allegheny County has been approved since then. Allegheny County's success came in 1998 after two unsuccessful efforts in the 1970s. This article is a study of Allegheny County's efforts to obtain home rule focusing on the charter writing process. The author contends that the charter writing phase has a major impact on whether the change effort is successful. He applies a framework to study this phase of the home rule effort. The framework consists of three models to categorize members by their orientation on the kinds of changes they seek. In addition to the models that are used to categorize members by their change preferences, a typology is applied to categorize members by their motivations and personal agendas to aid in explaining their behavior and voting on charter provisions. How the government study commission is chosen has an impact on the type of charter recommended and ultimately on the success of the change effort. Two of the charter commissions were elected, and the successful commission was appointed. A different model dominated each commission. The author concludes that an appointed commission and state parameters on the type of charter that could be recommended to the voters were major factors in the success of the change effort.