INSIDE WASHINGTON/ Locals push agenda to new White House

`[Bush’s] comments reflected many of the mayors’ priorities.’

Understanding the need to forge ties with a new White House, city and county officials are working closely with President George Bush’s advisers to ensure that local issues are a priority in his administration. Representatives from the National Association of Counties, National League of Cities and the United States Conference of Mayors have been talking with Bush staffers to highlight local governments’ needs and requirements. Each organization notes that the discussions continue talks that began well before the November election, when they reached out to Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore as the two men campaigned for the White House.

“For more than a year, mayors have worked closely with the policy staffs of both the Bush and Gore campaigns in an effort to build common ground,” says Boise, Idaho, Mayor and USCM President Brent Coles. “President Bush addressed the U.S. Conference of Mayors in June … [and] his comments reflected many of the mayors’ priorities. He expressed a willingness to listen to the nation’s mayors and build a strong and meaningful partnership with us.”

Local leaders are banking on Bush to bring his experience and insight as a state official to Washington to help in making decisions about the nation’s domestic agenda. He already is receiving praise for nominating Mel Martinez, chairman of the Orange County (Fla.) Board of Commissioners, to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD is one of the most important cabinet departments in the eyes of local officials.

“We are excited about Mel Martinez,” says Metropolitan King County (Wash.) Councilmember Jane Hague, president of NACo. “This appointment is tremendously encouraging for county officials nationwide, because it demonstrates that the new administration is committed to listening to and working with local authorities.”

City and county officials note that, even though they are actively courting the new White House, they are continuing to work with their congressional allies to move their agenda ahead. In addition to the “Investing in Communities” initiative – an umbrella agenda that calls for strategic investing in cities and counties – each of the organizations is promoting a series of goals they hope Congress and the new administration will embrace.

Those goals include the establishment of flexible grant programs to help city and county officials tailor federal funding to improve public schools and fight crime. Increased funding for water infrastructure improvements and efforts to create more home ownership opportunities also will command priority attention in this Congress, local officials say.

In addition, local government leaders will continue to vigorously oppose an extension of the Internet tax moratorium – an issue they say takes tax dollars away from communities by reducing the revenue of Main Street merchants. “We are not saying that we are pro-tax,” Hague says about the Internet tax issue. “But basic services are going to suffer [if the moratorium is extended].” Local officials also say they will oppose any new unfunded federal mandates that could further burden city and county governments’ already stretched budgets as well as any legislation that preempts their authority over local zoning issues.

Because the election produced no electoral mandate, local officials expect that Republicans and Democrats will be forced to work together in a bipartisan manner that was largely absent in the 106th Congress. The Senate’s 50-50 split and near parity in the House should “make it more difficult for anything that is real onerous to get passed,” predicts Cameron Whitman, NLC’s director of policy and federal relations.

“Do you know what happens,” she says, “they have to respond to a certain extent to the needs of the country.”