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:
“Vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous. To be convinced of this we need only represent, on the one hand, the numberless benefits which result from vanity, as industry, the arts, fashions, politeness, and taste; and on the other, the infinite evils which spring from the pride of certain nations, a laziness, poverty, a total neglect of everything.”
—Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (1689–1755)
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)