ABSTRACT
The attitudes and behavior of local policy makers constitute an area of long-standing concern to political scientists. Decisions made at the city council level have far-reaching consequences. Indeed, for most Americans, decisions made at city hall tend to affect their lives more directly than decisions made in Washington, DC. The emphasis upon electoral structure, particularly some form of district elections, also contributes to the strength of the electoral argument, especially in reference to the minority community. The lack of political ambition among local policy makers is congruent with the previous research that suggests that those at higher levels of office state rather than local are more likely to be politically ambitious. The logistic regression equation on all six of the reasons given, with form of election, ethnicity, size of city, ideology of the council member, previous political activity of the council member, and the council member's view of constituent interests as independent.
