“We all have an obligation to make our aspirations become a reality.” Across the political spectrum — from Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City to President Donald J. Trump — there seems to be a growing recognition that establishing trust in government can be reduced to a relatively simple formula: “promises made, promises kept.” Based on my conversation with the former Mayor of Los Angeles and Institute of Politics Fellow Antonio Villaraigosa, you can count him among those convinced that restoring trust in government demands more fidelity to promises made in office and along the campaign trail.
Are voters up to the task of not only keeping track of promises but also holding officials accountable to them? I presented this dilemma to the Mayor.
Thankfully, Mayor Villaraigosa has an idea for how voters can better tally and track promises. His suggestion involves redefining the aforementioned formula; he theorizes that creating trust can be simplified to “promises made, promises kept, and metrics to prove it.” He expanded on his version of the formula by clarifying, “Fostering trust starts with keeping your commitments, doing what you said you were going to do, [and] showing results.”
Voters may be rightfully skeptical of the idea that clearer metrics would be enough to improve accountability among elected officials. Anticipating that I’d raise this concern, the Mayor walked me through how his formula shaped his actions while he ran for and served in office.
Mayor Villaraigosa made plenty of promises. During his campaign in 2004, he informed me that he encouraged the city to “Dream with Me.” More specifically, he asked Angelenos to dream of a future with fewer failing schools, a substantial decrease in climate emissions, less crime, and more roads. He likewise called for cleaner air and safer communities with more public transportation.
Next, the Mayor asserted that he kept his promises and had the metrics to prove it. The metrics were the result of some strategic moves he took early in his tenure. The Mayor understood that others would need to see some evidence of his administration’s progress toward his dreamland. So, he explained, soon after winning the 2004 election, his team brought on McKinsey Consulting to put metrics next to his promises.
As a result of the McKinsey-generated metrics, he can now tick off impressive statistics that indicate he made meaningful moves toward his dream. I listened as he enumerated them: “Violent crime went down 49%, homicides [dropped by] 45% — with constitutional and community policing,” he continued, “We took a broken school system with a 44% graduation rate and took it to a 72% graduation rate and [we] went from one out of three schools failing to one out of ten.”
The Mayor also detailed the steps he took toward his dream of a more connected, greener Los Angeles. During his tenure, he oversaw the construction of three light rail lines and one busway, which he said was more than any other city in the United States during those eight years. What’s more, under Mayor Villaraigosa, the City increased its use of solar, wind, and geothermal power by a factor of five. Finally, the Mayor proudly highlighted that he led Los Angeles to sign agreements to get off coal by 2025; and, he happily reported to me that the City is on track to do just that.
A plurality of Angelenos, if approval ratings are viewed as a proxy for trust, would agree with the Mayor’s assessment of his ability to show results and keep his commitments. Indeed, even nonpartisan political scientists regarded the Mayor’s outgoing favorability ratings as unusually high, especially given the length of his tenure and the depths of a national recession.
This high favorability and trust may have been due to another addendum the Mayor made to his formula. “You build trust [and achieve results],” he added, “by including people in the process.”
“By including people,” the Mayor specified, “it has to be more than form over substance.” That’s why, he told me, he paid careful attention to forming an “active connection with local leaders” and made sure to include them “in a priority setting.”
I posited to him that it’s this sort of attentiveness to individuals and community groups that makes mayors such a key part of building trust in government. He agreed, saying, “Whereas governors walk into a big event through the kitchen, mayors come through the main entrance.” This proximity to the people and willingness to mingle with residents, in his opinion, provides mayors with a unique opportunity to combat alienation and apathy.
A commitment to establishing personal relationships — demonstrated by officials conversing with constituents — is imperative to restoring trust, per the Mayor. He believes that both politicians and the people have a responsibility to engage one another. Sadly, though, that responsibility has recently been skirted. “People have checked out in a way that is not healthy for our democracy,” he claimed.
Now among those outside of elected office, the former Mayor declared, “We all have an obligation to make our aspirations become a reality.”
Perhaps a key part of that obligation is tying metrics to promises and ensuring leaders know we’ll be tracking them, step by step, goal by goal.
