In 16 days, suburban Maryland voters will elect six people to jobs that rank among the power elite of local officials in the nation.
The county executives in Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Harford, Howard, Prince George's and Montgomery counties wield the same muscle as big-city mayors, deciding who gets water and sewerage, whose potholes to repave and which neighborhoods will receive new schools. Most of them also provide police and fire protection.
"Every function of government, it's totally in his hands," said former Anne Arundel County Executive Joseph Alton. "All the things that affect their [voters'] daily lives, other than national security, are given or taken away at the local level."
Nationwide, that kind of concentrated power is the exception rather than the rule, said Michael G. Griffin, executive director of the National Council of Elected County Executives (NCECE). Only 12 percent of the more than 3,600 counties across the United States elect executives -- sometimes called parish presidents, judges and mayors -- to run their day-to-day operations.
Even then, some executives do not have the range of powers that they do in Maryland, said state Secretary of Transportation O. James Lighthizer, who ruled as Anne Arundel's executive in the 1980s. Anne Arundel County -- which, with 450,600 residents, has roughly the same population as Denver -- is home to a school system that's among the 20 largest in the nation and a police department that ranks among the 40 largest, he said.
"If you go somewhere else and say you were a county executive, they think you were some flunkie administrator," Mr. Lighthizer said. "In Maryland, it's a big boy's job."
Still, Daniel Nataf, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, worries that the public appears woefully ignorant about government at the local level, including the scope of a county executive's duties.
"There is a cognitive gap between average citizens and the political insiders who know this stuff," said Mr. Nataf who, last fall, taught the first course in state and local government at UMBC in 10 years. "If you had one out of 100 people who had ever looked at the Maryland Constitution, I'd be surprised. My students hadn't."
Mr. Nataf, who ran for House of Delegates and lost in the Democratic primary, said voters, just as his students, seem to lack basic knowledge about state and local government. On the campaign trail this summer, he said, he often found voters didn't even know the names of the two houses of the General Assembly.
Mr. Griffin said, "I don't think enough people do know . . . how complicated, how detailed a job a county executive holds. He has to do everything a governor does, only on a smaller scale."
Actually, because Maryland's county governments are so centralized, they are "easier to understand than anywhere else," said Patricia Florestano, a political science professor at the University of Baltimore's William Donald Schaefer Center. "[It] is cleaner and less complicated."
In other states, counties have multiple school, police and fire districts. They have independent library boards and road districts -- often with their own taxing authority.
Tim Davis, president of the NCECE and county executive for Summitt County, Ohio, said his county has 16 independent school boards, 10 police districts and 32 cities, villages and townships. In all, he said, there are more than 350 elected officials and 78 separate taxing authorities in Summitt, which has a population of 525,000.
Summitt County recently formed an executive-led government to eliminate some of the overlapping authority and confusion, Mr. Davis said. Eventually, he said, he would like to have a system similar to those in Maryland.
"Somebody has to be in charge of this mess," Mr. Davis said. "Our problem here is that so many of the elected officials have a piece of the pie."
In Maryland, the executive virtually controls the pie. His greatest power -- indeed, the source of his power -- lies in the budget. He sets a county's priorities because, with the exception of education spending, a county council may cut but not add to the budget. In Baltimore County, the council cannot even increase education spending.
"It's the old golden rule: He who has the gold rules," Mr. Lighthizer said. "That's what the budget is, the gold."
The strong county executive system closely parallels the state and federal governments, which most people understand, said Jeanne Bilanin, project administrator for the Institute for Governmental Service at University of Maryland College Park. The executive has an agenda, separate from the legislative branch and, frequently, a veto over legislation adopted by an elected county council, she said.
Anne Arundel County Executive Robert R. Neall said a county executive is more directly responsible for the quality of residents' lives than any other public official. He can have an impact on the economy, literacy, health and social services and law enforcement.
"County government touches people in a lot of different ways, and the way the [county] charter works, it puts one guy in charge," Mr. Neall said. "It's that easy."
The origins of executive-led government in Maryland date back to 1915, when voters approved a constitutional amendment giving residents home-rule authority. At that time every county was governed from afar by the state General Assembly in Annapolis and administered locally by an elected board of county commissioners.
Baltimore County voters initially rejected a form of home rule in 1920, but 36 years later, they elected the first county executive in the state. A spate of counties -- mostly the larger suburban jurisdictions in the Baltimore-Washington corridor -- followed suit the 1960s and 1970s.
However, none has adopted executive governments since. Today, most of Maryland's 24 counties still operate under the old system.
The county executive movement was born out of the rapid suburbanization that occurred outside of major cities as the nation emerged from the Depression, said Vince Marando, a professor of political science at College Park.
The first county executive in the nation was elected in Westchester County, N.Y., during the Depression. Since then, county governments led by executives have become the fastest-growing governmental form in the United States, Mr. Marando said. They now appear in clusters around the nation, he said, citing Maryland, New York and California as examples.
State and federal governments also have fueled the growth by forcing the financial responsibility for more services, particularly social programs, on the counties, Mr. Griffin said. As expenditures increase, nervous taxpayers increasingly have opted for county executives to provide more accountability, he said.
Today, most urban counties face the same pressures as Baltimore City, said former Baltimore County Executive Donald P. Hutchinson. When voters first elected him in 1978, his chief task was planning the roads, schools and other services needed the rapidly growing county, he said.
Sixteen years later, the county executive continues to grapple with new growth but also struggles to prevent the deterioration of established neighborhoods, a problem confronting most of the country's major cities, Mr. Hutchinson said. Baltimore County is now the fourth-largest jurisdiction in the state behind Montgomery and Prince George's counties and Baltimore City, respectively.
"The county executive has to deal with big-city problems," Mr. Hutchinson said. "There are more elderly and poor citizens in the county than ever before, the type of citizen that needs more services."
Mr. Hutchinson said the county executives of the region actually have become as important and influential, if not more so, than the mayor of Baltimore City. However, county residents often are more familiar with the Baltimore mayor than their own county executive because the mayor's problems often are more intractable and generate more publicity, he said.
Although counties face the same problems -- from locating and maintaining public housing to accommodating culturally diverse populations -- as the city, Mrs. Florestano said the counties have an advantage over Baltimore: They are geographically larger.
"Cities are having a lot of problems because they are so compact, and the people who pay the taxes are fleeing to the surrounding counties," she said. "The fact that they cover more land has not been a problem for the counties; it's made them easier to govern."
Despite the political power invested in county executives, the position has not been a ready vehicle to higher office in Maryland. Only one has successfully run for governor, said Herb Smith, a political scientist at Western Maryland College. Former Vice President Spiro Agnew, a former Baltimore County executive, was elected governor in 1966.
Nearly all of Maryland's governors have come from the state legislature, Mr. Smith said, noting that former Baltimore County Executive Ted Venetoulis lost a gubernatorial bid in 1978, and former Anne Arundel County Executive Robert Pascal lost in 1982.
County executive "is a more demanding position than that of a legislator, and it's probably a more dangerous role," Mr. Smith said. "County executives make more concrete decisions that please some and alienate others . . . people remember and wait for a chance to pay them back. Legislators simply don't carry that much baggage."
Mr. Lighthizer said, "If the fire department is late for a fire, they blame you. . . There could be traffic jam on a state road, and they still blame you because you are the only name they even vaguely know."
"If you leave office after eight years and at least 50 percent of the population doesn't hate you, you probably haven't done your job," Mr. Lighthizer said. "I probably angered 50 percent of the population every day."
COUNTY EXECUTIVES AND MAYORS
How Maryland counties with county executives compare with Baltimore and other cities.
LBJurisdiction .. .. .. .. .. population .. .. .. .. .. yearly pay
Montgomery County .. .. ... 819,100 .. .. .. .. .. .. $98,983
Prince George's County .. .. 754,100 ... ... .. .. .. 93,206
Indianapolis .. .. .. .. ... 741,952 .. .. ... ... .. 82,600
Baltimore .. .. .. .. .. ... 727,400 .. .. .. .. .. .. 60,000
San Francisco .. .. .. .. .. 723,959 .. .. .. .. .. .. 126,616
Baltimore County .. .. .. .. 703,000 .. .. .. .. .. .. 100,700
Washington, D.C. .. .. .. .. 606,900 .. .. .. .. .. .. 90,000
Denver .. .. .. .. .. .. ... 467,610 .. .. .. .. .. .. 95,000
Anne Arundel County .. .. .. 445,200 .. .. .. .. .. .. 78,000
Atlanta .. .. ... .. ... ... 394,017 .. .. .. .. .. .. 100,000
Howard County .. .. .. .. .. 211,000 .. .. .. .. .. .. 80,000
Richmond, Va. .. .. .. .. .. 203,000 .. .. .. .. .. .. $60,000
Harford County .. .. ... ... 194,700 .. .. .. .. .. .. 65,000