Local governments can uniquely combat growing polarization across the country, according to a new study released Wednesday by the nonprofit research organization Civic Pulse and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The study surveyed more than 1,400 local elected policymakers and civil service leaders, and found that 87% of those surveyed said political polarization is “a lot” or “a lot” in the country. It was found that some respondents said that it was having a “significantly negative impact.” However, only 31% of local officials say political polarization is having such a negative impact on their local communities.
Louise Richardson, president of Carnegie, a philanthropic foundation that supports research and education, said of the report: “The political polarization that dominates the media at the national level has no control over life at the local level.” No,” he said. Go to NBC News.
Richardson said it’s incredibly important that communities, “whether broadly liberal, conservative, or mixed… continue the daily work of making compromises and creating policies that meet the everyday needs of their people.” It’s reassuring,” he added. Components. ”
Smaller communities are less polarized
The survey, which broke down responses by population size, found that local officials in smaller communities believe polarization has less negative effects than those in larger communities.
Forty-six percent of staff in communities with 50,000 or more residents said their community has been “quite” or “quite” negatively affected by polarization, compared to 46% in communities with 1,000 to 10,000 residents. Only 28% of local government officials in their communities said the same thing.
One such local official is Jeff Sorensen, township supervisor of Cooper Charter Township, Michigan, a community of about 11,000 people. Sorensen, a Republican, told NBC News that while local officials must run as Democrats, Republicans or independents, once they take office, “that goes away and we’re able to serve the people who live in our districts.” I will serve,” he said.
“It’s a really great situation here,” he added.
Local government officials interviewed for this study said a lack of negative polarization in communities means that local government officials and local residents spend more time together and share common values and interests outside of politics. He said this was due to several factors, including the opportunity to connect around the world.
“The more you interact with people who have different opinions, the more you realize that we all have a lot in common,” one survey respondent, a California congressman, told the study authors. . Just sit next to them at a Lions Club function and wave a flag (or gun) in their face. ”
Respondents also noted that solutions to local problems, such as potholes, sewer problems, and broken traffic lights, often don’t fall along clear partisan lines.
One respondent, an elected official from a small municipality in New Jersey, said in response to survey questions that “political party affiliation and its underlying philosophy do not matter in addressing community needs related to things like infrastructure.” “They are not fulfilling their role,” he wrote.
Sorensen added that local issues sometimes have to be resolved within days or hours, and bipartisan discussions slow the process.
For example, he recalled a situation in 2018 when local officials learned that a local drinking water source was contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS chemicals, at nearly three times the legal limit.
Officials from across city lines came together to “drain Parchment’s water system within 72 hours and ensure voters in Kalamazoo, Parchment, and Cooper had clean drinking water within that time frame.”
Sorensen added that in just 12 hours after the emergency began, authorities, with help from city and county officials, had distributed thousands of bottles of water to residents.
“Everyone is working together and you don’t have to worry about who’s paying,” he said. “It’s something that is seen as local collaboration, and it’s something that I and others in town government have been working to build.”
The study found that political polarization has a smaller impact on relationships among community leaders compared to voters, with 36% of respondents saying community members are influenced “a lot” or “quite a lot.” only 23% said the same about their relationships. among elected officials.
Emily Holmes, vice chair of Pennsylvania’s North Strabane Township Board of Supervisors, told NBC News that election season can be “tiring” in key battleground states, but “where I live… “As a resident of the area where I live, I feel this even more.” Not as much as local elected officials. ”
“I think a lot of it has to do with the power dynamics between the board members and how they interact with each other,” added Holmes, a Democrat. “Do you have divisive members on your board who bring the state into local politics?”
He said he has not experienced any negative changes in partisanship within the board, but “I believe it is a sensitive situation and could change at any time.”
Rising tensions during election period
The study found that polarization has a serious impact on local governments before and after elections. That’s because local governments are typically the ones responsible for collecting and tabulating ballots, hiring poll workers, and actually administering federal and state-wide elections.
“Even in a community of just 5,000 people, if you’re worried about a federal election, the way to express that anxiety is probably to go and say hostile things,” he said. , your city council member,” CivicPulse founder and managing director Nathan Lee told NBC News.
He added that local officials can bear the brunt of people’s dissatisfaction with federal elections because they are more accessible to local residents than elected officials at the federal or state level.
Local officials are “the front line for people who want to raise concerns, and sometimes those concerns are expressed respectfully, but unfortunately often they aren’t,” Lee said.
The study also found that national parties’ increasing focus on local issues destabilized the relative political peace that existed in local communities.
The debate over LGBTQ programming and books in schools and public libraries is just one example of a highly localized national issue, survey respondents wrote.
Lee pointed to the fact that these types of issues dealing with schools, libraries and local zoning are “within the jurisdiction of local governments” and naturally belong to the local level.
“Even if it’s a national topic…by default, these topics often end up in the hands of local community management boards,” he added.
local news desert
The study also found that the recent shift from relying on local news outlets to social media as a source of information has led to increased misinformation and community division.
Holmes said her town is not immune to local issues.
“Development is a hugely divisive topic within my community, and there are online groups created around specific proposed developments.” Some local news outlets are still active in the community Still, she added, online groups are growing and divisions online are far worse than in person.
“People feel much more comfortable saying something online than they would say it to you in person or even in an email,” she says.
Still, despite the pressures local leaders face from the forces of polarization at the national level, the report’s authors see a general silver lining in the survey. .
“People look at local government as a group of humans that you would encounter at the gym or at the grocery store,” Lee said. “It allows local government officials to be more relatable to voters and residents, and I think that’s good for trust.”
