Politics is politics, but this is ridiculous.

Three Republican and one Democratic City Council members have consistently criticized Mayor Tom Henry over the last 3½ years, but nothing demonstrates both their anti-Henry effort as well as the council’s increasing dysfunction as their futile attempt to override state law and regulate local campaign contributions.

Indeed, their constant hammering at this losing issue is reminiscent of a key scene in “Animal House”:

“This situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part!”

“We’re just the guys to do it.”

Fittingly, the voice of reason to emerge with a face-saving compromise that would actually lead to better government – rather than simply score a partisan victory – came from former City Councilman John Crawford, a Republican who didn’t hesitate to question city spending under Democratic mayors when he served on the council. But unlike some current members, Crawford did it in a professional, not personal, manner and was willing to take “yes” for an answer.

The other voice of reason came from Tom Didier, also a Republican who, while he often sides with other members of his party, also avoids much of the partisan bickering. The second-term councilman respected the attorney general’s opinion that state law would indeed make any ordinance the council passed to regulate campaign contributions invalid.

A different council

Watching the City Council in action, it’s hard not to get the impression that Republicans Liz Brown, Mitch Harper, Tom Smith and Democrat John Shoaff are more eager to sink Henry than accomplish public policy goals.

Though Democrat Shoaff often sides with the Republicans, and Republican Marty Bender frequently sides with a Democratic administration for which he works, this council elected in 2007 is proving to be one of the most flat-out partisan councils the city has seen.

Without question, over the years a number of votes fell on partisan lines. But on many of the most important issues in the past, party labels haven’t mattered.

Consider the council’s 1996 vote on the controversial proposal to annex much of Aboite Township. All nine council members – five Republicans and four Democrats – supported Republican Mayor Paul Helmke’s plan.

More recently, four Republicans and three Democrats voted together in January 2007 to pass the smoking ban. Later that year, three Republicans and three Democrats voted to sell the bonds for Harrison Square, the key vote for what was then the controversial downtown ballpark.

Indeed, former Republican Councilman Sam Talarico Jr. and current Democratic Councilman Tim Pape – both attorneys who often found themselves on opposite sides of an issue – worked together to win approval for Harrison Square.

“If Tim and I disagreed on an issue, it was because of our true feelings on the issue, not because he had a D after his name and I had an R,” Talarico said. “It just seems to be real personal, almost animosity, among some council members now, which didn’t exist when I was on the council.”

With three new members and one former member elected in 2007, the dynamics changed – and the personalities intensified the split.

Personalities

“I don’t know whether it’s all partisan politics or just combativeness,” said former nine-term councilman Don Schmidt. People who watch council meetings in person or on TV, Schmidt said, “bemoan the tenor of the group.”

Adds Mark GiaQuinta, a former four-term council member and now president of the Fort Wayne Community Schools board:

“I have a hard time understanding the unfriendliness. … It seems to come down to, ‘If you’re on this side, I’m on that side.’ ”

Another former council member who has witnessed the degradation in the council’s civility is Henry, a five-term councilman from 1984 to 2003.

Henry recalls exchanging harsh words with Republicans like Schmidt and Crawford but in private, before or after meetings. “When we sat down at the table, we would try to address the issues in a professional manner, Republicans and Democrats,” Henry said. Now, “it seems like a mean-spiritedness has infected council.”

The council has always had its share of characters. The late Roy Schomburg, beloved as a local pharmacist, would let loose with opinions that were sometimes humorous, sometimes off the wall. Paul Mike Burns, who served on the council after being mayor, was against practically everything.

On this council, two new members, in particular, have raised the amount of vitriolic criticism while, arguably, lowering the quality of the discourse: Brown and Harper. Brown, in particular, often comes across as biting and personal in her questioning of administration officials.

Harper, for his part, has made it clear he wants the council to be more like the legislature. While he was referring to procedures, he has brought the much more partisan political tone of the legislature to the council as well.

Harper’s comments frequently spark rejoinders from Pape, who has his own reputation for less-than-diplomatic bluntness. And it hasn’t helped the council’s discourse that both lawyers have a reputation for verbosity.

“You sometimes need to know how to listen,” Schmidt said.

The issue

The effort to regulate campaign finance contributions began with an obvious attempt to hurt Henry. Brown, who wanted Henry’s job but lost to Paula Hughes in the GOP primary, proposed prohibiting city contractors – and their wives, and their subcontractors, and their subcontractors’ wives – from contributing to the campaign of an incumbent mayor. That proposal would have affected Henry only.

She later agreed to revise it to include all candidates for city office, including council and city clerk. She and Harper worked on other changes, each designed to make the proposal more palatable.

Pape and first-term Democrat Karen Goldner argued – correctly – that state law governs campaign contributions to local office candidates and does not permit cities to set different guidelines. They have good evidence on their side, including a 1983 attorney general’s opinion and a recent opinion from both the Republican and Democratic attorneys for the state election commission.

Granted, all of those are lawyers’ opinions, and lawyers can disagree. The only way to truly determine whether a city campaign finance ordinance is legal is to pass it and have it be tested in court. But such an exercise is expensive, probably the main reason a similar local ordinance in Jeffersonville has yet to be challenged.

Harper has said the city can pass such an ordinance because it regulates contractors, not campaign contributions, spurring memories of President Clinton and the definition of “is.”

Crawford’s sensible and welcome solution is for the city to require bidding for professional services such as engineers, architects, consultants and lawyers – professionals who often contribute heavily to sitting mayors of both parties.

After Brown’s initial proposal, then her second proposal, then Harper’s proposed ordinance, Brown says she will write a new ordinance, largely based on Crawford’s idea.

In contrast to those haphazard efforts, Crawford notes that his idea should be well researched. “It has to be set up very carefully,” he said.