People need to know about local government because it is a critical factor in determining the quality of their lives. Local governments provide police and fire protection, streets and roads, cemeteries, schools, water distribution and sewage disposal, elections, human services, land use protection, systems of water drainage, health services, systems of justice, and numerous other services. Local governments affect peoples' lives daily.
Local government is arguably the most important of the three levels but interest in it ranks a poor third. Voting in the years when board of education, municipal and township elections are held is significantly lower than in the presidential and gubernatorial election years.
Citizens who are knowledgeable about their governments will get better government services. They need to know which governments provide what services. They need to know the needs, mandates and structures of local governments. Citizens become frustrated when they don't recognize where to go for specific services and when they don't understand the constraints imposed upon local governments.
Local elected officials' jobs are easier and more productive when citizens understand how those governments are structured, operated, and financed. Citizens who understand the consequences of various governmental actions or inactions will be more supportive when needs are properly articulated.
Perhaps Thomas Jefferson gave the best reason why people should know about government when he said, "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."
In the United States, all governmental authority ultimately derives from the people. Delegates from the various states, representing the people of those states, wrote the United States Constitution. The Constitution establishes the limits of governmental authority delegated to the national government. All other authority is reserved to the states or retained by the people.
Although we take for granted that all governmental authority derives from the people, such is certainly not the case in all nations. Traditional sources of authority include the political party, the military, the royal family, the church and a charismatic leader.
Governments can be defined as authoritative decision-makers in the public sector. Public sector decisions are those that affect society generally, rather than those that affect only people's private lives. As society becomes more complex and interrelated, an increasing number of activities become subject to public decision-making. For example, land use decisions, which in the past were purely a landowner matter, are now subject to various regulations. The use of automobile passenger restraints is now a public decision.
Given the increasing complexity of society, there are always decisions that are in a gray, or transitional, belt between public and private. For example, are the use of helmets by motorcycle riders and the closing of manufacturing plants public or private decisions?
Authoritative decision makers can force people to do things they otherwise might not, such as pay more taxes than if left to their own free will. And they can prevent people from doing some things they might otherwise do, such as build sub-standard housing.
Government in the United States is nonmonolithic - that is, it is not a single, unified, central unit. The federal system disperses authority among national, state and local levels. Within each level authority is separated among the executive, legislative and judicial branches.
As indicated above, all governmental authority ultimately derives from the people. The people exercise that authority through laws, which become additional sources of authority.
Laws can take many forms, including constitutions, legislative codes, administrative codes, court rulings and attorney general opinions. They can be issued by various governmental officials, both elected and appointed.
This bulletin will examine in some detail the part that local government plays in this complex process, and will also review the historical context from which our present local governments stem (See "Sources of State Authority," Appendix, p. 22).