Government and Politics
Saint Paul has a variation of the strong mayor-council form of government. The mayor is the chief executive and chief administrative officer for the city and the seven-member city council is the legislative body. The mayor is elected by the entire city, while members of the city council are elected from seven different geographic wards of approximately equal population. Both the mayor and council members serve four-year terms. The current mayor is Chris Coleman (DFL), who is no relation to former mayor Norm Coleman. Coleman is Saint Paul's ninth Irish-American mayor since 1900. Aside from Norm Coleman, who became a Republican during his second term, Saint Paul has not elected a Republican mayor since 1952.
The city is also the county seat of Ramsey County, named for Alexander Ramsey, the state's first governor. The county once spanned much of the present-day metropolitan area and was originally to be named Saint Paul County after the city. Today it is geographically the smallest county and the most densely populated. Ramsey is the only home rule county in Minnesota; the seven-member Board of Commissioners appoints a county manager whose office is in the combination city hall/county courthouse along with the Minnesota Second Judicial Courts. The nearby Law Enforcement Center houses the Ramsey County Sheriff's office.
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Famous quotes containing the words government and/or politics:
“There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a Democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the “money touch,” but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when antiracism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other and both interests lose.”
—Kimberly Crenshaw (b. 1959)