Dumb questions from a political amateur
Submitted by Thomas Brock on Sun, 02/25/2007 - 10:56am
I defer to my wiser colleagues on a few dumb questions...
Many local elected offices are considered non-partisan (County commissions, City councils, etc).
How involved can local Democratic Party's be in the campaign processes for these offices?
Are Party endorsements legal/ethical within the rules?
What about building a Democratic base within the County/City structure of citizen boards and commissions?
Is it legal/ethical to attempt to have Democrats nominated to these boards and commissions?
Thank you all for your information and my apologies for asking perhaps the most ignorant of questions...
We're non-partisan here in Chapel Hill for town races
and there's very little evidence of partisanship at all. But that could be because 90% of the people in the community are Democrats.
The opinions of others from more balanced areas will probably be more helpful.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
On the other hand...
the Democratic Party puts out a voter guide to insure that everyone knows who the Democratic candidates are.
Where are the candidates?
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
Thanks, -A-
:) Any information is helpful.
Thomas S. Brock
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OnslowCountyPolitics@gmail.com
http://onslowcountypolitics.brocknet.net
Thomas S. Brock
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http://blogs.brocknet.net/bloviations/
What have YOU done today to make the world a better place?
my understanding is...
The Democratic Party cannot (should not?) get involved with races in which there are more than one Democratic candidate running for the same seat (which happens a good deal in non-partisan races). However, we should be able to endorse candidates for non-partisan races in which only one Dem candidate is running, like the party does for judicial races.
You may want to check with the individual candidate to make sure he/she is willing to be indentified. On occcasion, the candidate wants to keep the race non-partisan. Also, be sure to check they are real Dems. In my county, we have a few "Democrats" who need to be replaced by real Democrats.
Local Partisanship
> How involved can local Democratic Party's be in
> the campaign processes for [non-partisan] offices?
I think we can endorse candidates. This happened, for example, in the last state-wide race for judges, where many interests, including the Democratic party, endorsed judicial candidates, who are supposed to be non-partisan.
> Are Party endorsements legal/ethical within the
> rules?
I'm not sure what "rules" might apply, but the Democratic Party usually follows a policy of not endorsing primary candidates, who are usually all Democrats. When this policy was violated at the last State Executive Committe meeting at Elon College, there was definitely comment in the hall, but the endorsed candidate won.
As for making local politics more partisan, my initial reaction is "Don't do it". In Chapel Hill, for example, we have to listen to candidates talk about specific issues, and that tells us a lot more than their party affiliation would. Ok, I would know to automatically vote against Republicans, but I would still need to know which Democrats and Independents to vote for.
> What about building a Democratic base within the
> County/City structure of citizen boards and
> commissions?
I'm intrigued by any ideas for building the Democratic base, but I'm not sure that increasing local partisanship would help. Maybe it would??
-- ge
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Here in Johnston County
the Republicans pushed their school board candidates in every way possible, especially targeting for defeat the only Democrat to make it through the "non-partisan" primary. They went so far as to host what appeared to be a non-partisan, concerned parents organization, on the Young Republicans web site.
We (Jo Co Dems) provided postcards to voters showing which candidates in the so-called non-partisan races were Democrats.
The JCDP paid for a newspaper ad listing all the Democratic candidates, and I believe only one candidate opted not to be included in that list. The disclosure legend read, "Paid for by the Johnston County Democratic Party. Not authorized or paid for by any candidate or candidate's committee." (That's from memory, it may not be exactly right, but it's close.) As I recall, we could not confer with any candidates about the substance of the ad, they were simply asked whether or not they would like the endorsement of the county party in a newspaper ad.
Even though a particular elected office is called non-partisan, I think just about anyone who is involved enough in community affairs to want to run for office, has some party affiliation. It's not difficult to find out, if you want to know, what party a person's voter registration is. I'm not sure that calling certain races non-partisan really accomplishes anything.
I basically agree
It isn't the party affiliation - it's their mindset/intentions.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.
Oh please no
I love nonpartisan boards. There should be more of them. Local issues transcend party politics. Water, sewer, police, fire, zoning, school funding all rise above all the crappy party stuff we must endure every day. We should be pushing for county commission races to be nonpartisan. State law does not require them to be partisan, but all 100 are. That stinks.
Agree 100%
County commission races should be non-partisan, like the school board, etc. Certainly there will be "politics" involved, but it would be better for everyone if at the county level it weren't so "us" against "them". (Or, as it feels in Moore, "them" against "us".) Maybe they could get on with the business of governing, and working in concert with the school board, zoning, etc.
I have a question as well: In Moore County - all the county commisioners are "at large", yet they must come from a certain district. That means that Candidate X would run for the seat representing District 5, but the entire county can vote in that race. Is this typical in NC?
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi
Not in Meck
We have districts and then three at large. Sounds like that was set up to keep predominantly Dem or minority districts from electing a Dem or minority. Hmmmmm
***************************
Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.
By all reasonable ways of
By all reasonable ways of splitting Moore Cunty up into a handfull of districts, I'm not sure there is a way to do it and create a mostly Dem or minoriy district.
Again, it shouldn't matter a whole lot anyway. The overwhelming majority of actual county business here is not really of a party/political nature.
It's true that it's not of a political nature
and I did (and do) agree with you that they should be non-partisan boards. However, since they are not non-partisan, almost everything they do becomes political. And, since the Republicans have held all the seats on the board for at least 15 years, there are nearly 17,000 of us who feel a bit unrepresented. I think the current board is much more moderate than the previous, but I still would like to see a Dem on the County Commissioners.
Would voting by district make a difference? I think it might. I worked extremely hard on Terry Marquez's campaign for County Commissioner. She would have represented District 5, which encompasses the precincts of East Aberdeen, West Aberdeen, Pinebluff, and Pinedene (part of Southern Pines). When comparing the vote just in those precincts, we lost by just 442 votes, which means that if we had been able to get only about 225 more supporters to the polls, we would have won her district. But since we had to campaign county-wide, our efforts and extremely limited funds and volunteers and time were spread very thinly. We lost the county by 5975, which means we would have had to get out about 3000 more votes in order to win.But if we could have concentrated on the one district, 225 votes would not have been hard to come by. If you're at all excited by spreadsheets, I have this simple one up to show what I'm talking about.
Would voting by district have made a difference? I don't know - I'm really doing some Monday morning quarterbacking based on what if. If Terry could have spent all of her money in District 5, her opponent, Jimmy Melton could have, too. So there's no way to tell. However, I think it would be more fair to have each district vote for its own commissioner. I live in the Vass precinct, and am pretty sure that the issues that we face over here are way different than those faced by the folks in Pinehurst C.
So as I said, I agree, it shouldn't matter much, because a lot of the business the County Commission faces isn't - or shouldn't - be political. But it becomes that when one (or 17,000) voices feel they don't have representation.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi
Onslow's Commissioners are also "At Large"
But they've recently been investigating ways to create districts. Apparently several years ago the County was set up in Districts but some people felt as if they were not represented so the districts were dissolved (which just means all the candidates for election live in Jacksonville, Richlands or the Southwest area).
Thomas S. Brock
www.brocknet.net
www.brocknet.net/WordPress/
OnslowCountyPolitics@gmail.com
http://onslowcountypolitics.brocknet.net
Thomas S. Brock
www.brocknet.net
http://blogs.brocknet.net/bloviations/
What have YOU done today to make the world a better place?
It's good that they're investigating it.
I'd like to see it investigated in Moore.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi