Forms of city government in the United States

City commission government is a form of municipal government which was common in the United States, but many cities which were formerly governed by commission have since switched to the council-manager form of government. Proponents of the council-manager form typically consider the city commission form to be the predecessor of, not the alternative to, the council-manager form of government.

In a city commission government, voters elect a small commission, typically, from five to seven members, on a plurality-at-large basis. These commissioners constitute the legislative body of the city and, as a group, are responsible for taxation, appropriations, ordinances, and other general functions. Individual commissioners are assigned responsibility for a specific aspect of municipal affairs, such as public works, finance, or public safety. One commissioner is designated to function as a chairman, or mayor, but this largely is a procedural or ceremonial designation and typically, does not involve additional powers beyond that exercised by the other commissioners.

This form of government originated in Galveston, Texas as a response to the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, mainly for the reason that extra support was needed in certain areas. After its constitutionality was tested and confirmed, this form of government quickly became popular across the state of Texas and spread to other parts of the United States.

For this reason, the city commission form of municipal government is sometimes known as the Galveston Plan or the Texas Idea.

Portland, Oregon remains the only large city in the United States that still has a city commission form of government.

The council-manager form of government developed, at least in part, as a response to some perceived limitations of the commission form. In the council-manager form, the elected council exercises the legislative power of the city and appoints a manager, who possesses the executive power. Thus the executive powers, divided among the commissioners in a commission form, are instead concentrated in the manager, who then delegates responsibility to department heads and other staff members. The council-manager form became the preferred alternative for progressive reform, and after World War I, very few cities adopted the commission form and many cities using the commission plan switched to the council-manager form. Galveston itself changed forms in 1960.

The mayor-council government system, sometimes called the mayor-commission government system, is one of the two most common forms of local government for municipalities in the United States. It is the one most frequently adopted in large cities, although the other form, council-manager government, is the typical local government form of more municipalities.

Characterized by having a mayor who is elected by the voters, the mayor-council variant may be broken down into two main variations depending on the relationship between the legislative and executive branches, becoming a weak mayor or a strong mayor based upon the powers of the office. These forms are used principally in modern representative municipal governments in the United States, but also used in some other countries.

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