Word: cca
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Most municipal elections throughout the United States involve a showdown between the Democrats and the Republicans. Most, that is, except the ones in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For 40 years, Cambridge politicians have aligned themselves either with the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA...
...current incarnation, the CCA faction in city politics is pro-rent control, pro-minority rights, and in general favoring progressive social policy. The CCA usually stands opposed to the more conservative Independent faction in the city council and school committee. At its inception, however, the CCA was designed primarily as a moderately conservative "good government" group...
...Roscoe Pound, decided to take action, establishing in 1945 a series of three reforms. The first two measures were aimed at cleaning up City Hall by revising the city charter and establishing a new electorial system. The third, the formation of a new citizen's coalition known as the CCA, was to ensure that it stayed clean...
Thus, the CCA was born at the same time as the other two oddities of Cambridge politics, "Plan E" government and Hare Proportional Representation. Under Plan E, a professional, non-elected city manager handles the day-to-day workings of government under the supervision of the elected officials. The mayor holds a largely ceremonial position and is elected from among the city councilors. PR voting, an at-large balloting system where candidates are ranked by voters, is designed to give minority views a chance to elect their own representatives. The CCA was dedicated to electing a slate of reformist city...
...next 10-15 years, the CCA remained moderately conservative. "There was still a lot of cleaning up to do," explains Frederick C. Levy '67, former president of the association. By the 1960s, however, new issues came to the attention of the group, spurring its first venture into progressive policy and also the first of the several splits in CCA support...