The Lonely Republicans

Fewer than 4000 of Cambridge's 50,000 registered voters are Republican--and each obituary column brings notice of another lost to the ages. Cambridge's elected representatives and senators are all Democrats. The House Majority Leader, Tip O'Neill, lives in Cambridge, as does the head of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. In a recent State Senate race in East Cambridge, the GOP candidate picked up only two votes in one precinct. Governor Francis W. Sargent's last major campaign operation in the city was led by Democrat Joe DeCuglielmo--who is now, coincidentally or not, a judge. (The governor's most recent judicial appointment is a Cambridge Democrat named McGovern.) Even the Republican Ripon Society closed its doors here and moved to the banks of the Potomac in August. One party rule has arrived in the City of Cambridge.

As with one party rule everywhere, shoddiness attends the delivery of even the most basic services. Those students who leave the well-plowed environs of Harvard Square will note snow-clogged side streets for days after any storm. Cambridge citizens, and growing numbers of students and faculty, have fallen prey to a crime rate that ranks seventh among all cities in the nation. Sidewalks overflow with uncollected litter, and the efforts of conservation-minded groups to bundle newspapers for recycling are thwarted by the erratic "schedule" of trash collection. And a city that boasts more planners and designers per square inch than any other has proven incapable of halting the flight of industry, or even offering events for the nation's Bi-Centennial.

These shortcomings become even more disturbing in light of rumors of corruption in city government. As Cambridge Democrats rally around the impeach-the-president flagpole, reports and hearsay drift up about city jobs bought and sold, spaces in public housing projects dispensed in return for favors, and city councillors paying parking tickets for major backers. City governments are seldom clean, but crushing dominance by one party makes honest government all the harder.

In terms of effectiveness, one-party rule can again prove stifling. The Massachusetts legislature, which could wield great force in solving Cambridge's ills, was ranked 33rd in a recent non-partisan study of the 50 state legislatures in the country. The study tested the legislatures for efficiency, service to constituents, length of sessions and other factors. "Interestingly, those legislatures that were ranked lower than Massachusetts were mostly those states that have been dominated by a one-party system longer than we have," the Massachusetts Republican State Committee noted. "Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Vermont, Kansas, and other states completely enswathed with a one-party structure of government (Democratic or Republican) are those same states with less effective legisltures than we have in the Commonwealth." On the other hand, those states where parties were in realtive balance showed the most vigorous and healthy lawmaking bodies.

The record of Cambridge's reform Democrats in the legislature is as flat as that of their peers. They vote easily and often to launch new social programs, but they don't follow through to make sure that the policies get off the ground and are adequately funded. They virtually never vote together on behalf of Cambridge's interests--indeed, the one vote last year affecting the city in which they came together as a bloc was against the city's interests, an effort to abolish proportional representation. This year's executive reorganization bill was resisted in part by Cambridge legislators who feared for their patronage powers, preferring fat, inefficient state agencies to less cumbersome ones.

The lack of an effective Republican presence in Cambridge hurts both those who seek strong alternatives on issues and an effective partisan watchdog. But there have been some recent glimmers of life in the Cambridge GOP. The Democrat/Republican margin in the last three presidential elections has narrowed: 10 to 1 in 1964, 5 to 1 in 1968, and 3 to 1 in 1972. One fourth of the current Harvard freshman class has indicated some interest in joining the Harvard Republican Club. The club now has a community action chairman, and some of its members worked with Cambridge Republicans on State Senator John Quinlan's recent successful drive to collect signatures on a tough campaign financing initiative petition--the first Harvard-Cambridge Republican joint venture in recent memory. The new Republican state committeeman for the second Middlesex district, Bill Cobham, is a life-long Cambridge resident who hopes to bring other qualified black candidates to judgeships and administrative positions, in line with the state party's traditional emphasis on minority participation. Perhaps most significantly, Glenn Koocher, another life-long Cambridge resident who is vice chairman of the Cambridge Republican committee, was recently elected to the Cambridge School Committee. Although he ran unaffiliated with any slate, he has proposed that Democratic legislators get off their duffs and support some of the Republican educational programs.

If one were to isolate a Republican spirit, it would presumably be an independant, honest one, willing to contribute to better public service, suspicious of inefficient government, and sympathetic to reform to provide best performance from tax dollars. As recent events have shown, these are virtues in short supply at some levels of our party as well as the Democratic. But in Cambridge--where the Democratic Party has held a death grip for decades--there can be no question about the need for an alternative. The sooner the better.

Martha Reardon is the chairwoman of the Cambridge Republican Party.