This paper discusses how Toledo city government changed from a mayor-ward council system, to a city manager with a proportional representation council system, to an at-large council-manager system. We draw from research on the structural location of the local state in the overall state system and its role in contradiction management, capitalist-labor struggle for control of the local state, and the early 20th century municipal reform movement in the United States to explain the outcomes of Toledo reform struggles. Our research supports the propositions that capitalists will attempt to depoliticize the local state while labor will attempt to politicize the local state. It also shows that labor is able to politicize the local state structure only when it is unified and capitalists are divided.
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