For John, BLUF: Transparency demands that we know how certain appointed Commissioners lean, politically. Nothing to see here; just move along.
This post is based on the two hour discussion on City Life this morning. The show can be seen again at 4:00 PM, or on line from Lowell Telecommunications Corporation. And, since Ms Linda Bown was on the show, it will also be shown in Thyngsboro at some point.
Here is a list of some 27 Lowell Commissions and Boards.
Here is the City's Web Page on applying for positions on Boards and Commissions. Even if there are no openings today, if you have an interest, send your resume in today and have it on file.
For almost all of the slots, ANYONE can apply, regardless or race, religion, national origin or political party.
However, to guard against hanky-panky, six positions are reserved, evenly split, between the two major political parties. That is two positions on the License Commission and four positions on the Election Commission. Note that there are a lot more positions than those six.
With regard to those critical election and license positions, how would you tell which way "Independent Voters" lean. One can be partisan without actually declaring it. With the our current lash-up someone can be registered as an "Independent" and yet pull a Democrat Party (or Republican Party) primary ballot their whole life and vote a straight Democrat Party (or Republican Party) ballot in all November elections. Would three such "Independents" provide fairness to Republican (Democrat) voters? No!
Regards — Cliff
15 comments:
Into the weeds, we go:
"One can be partisan without actually declaring it." Yes! We often hear of folks in business that prefer to hedge their bets, so as not to alienate themselves from potential customers. We see this in the non-partisan, yet tribal, City elections, too.
...
"With the our current lash-up someone can be registered as an "Independent" and yet pull a Democrat Party (or Republican Party) primary ballot their whole life ..." This one gets a bit more dicey. Because MADems have such hegemony over state politics, when inclined, they can field viable candidates for primary elections.
MAGOPers, fewer in number and more focused on state constitutional offices, simply don't have a viable farm team to assert for 'lesser offices.'
Thus, the honest to goodness Unenrolleds, are effectively steered towards pulling Dem primary ballots.
It's a lousy situation.
Seriously? You're going to suggest that something could possibly be made to be unfair to either or both of the entrenched political parties by unenrolled folks outside of either? Seriously?
So this is the long game? Outlawing unenrolled folks (or folks from other parties) from serving on boards because they haven't declared allegiance to either of the two major parties? Something equivalent to a penalty for political apostasy?
This one is over the top, even by major political party standards.
From serving on TWO boards of 27. ONE, actually, the Election Commission.
Even then, only two of the three slots on the License Commission are reserved for the two major parties.
Independents vs Party Members is sort of like the question of if Atheism is a religion? From a sociological point of view perhaps not. From a Constitutional point of view perhaps it needs to be considered a religion, to protect the rights of those who have a Faith.
So, have you EMailed your State Rep to request a change in the law?
Regards — Cliff
I wholeheartedly believe in our system which, ostensibly, also guarantees freedom FROM religion as well as "of". Like "Christians" complaining about a "war on Christmas" being waged down at the mall, I'm thinking you're protesting too much. No, I haven't written my State Rep (is this even a State matter?) lately, as I've learned through long experience that politically-affiliated people playing the game well enough to get elected are never interested in relaxing the rules by which they enjoyed advantage to get elected in the first place.
So, my tax dollars are confiscated to pay for partisan political primaries, and those elected through that crooked system enjoy the power to ensure things will always be so. And now, I guess, they get to complain about how unfair it all is to them, too. Nice.
I am with you that the political parties shouldn't get a free ride in the Primaries--but should also be free to go the caucus route. Why burden the others?
On the other hand, the Independents shouldn't get to meddle in Party Politics.
Mark this, a political activist—a Republican—says do away with Party Primaries unless the Parties wish to fund them. However, let them put their candidate on the ballot, with their Party label, in the General Election.
On the other hand, the requirement for it being folks from the two major parties on the Election Commission and the License Commission (2 of 3) is written in State Law.
Regards — Cliff
Agreed that the fact you can show up, request a party primary ballot, distort the outcome of that primary, and then unenroll yourself again right after is a crazy way to try to administer a system. It's clearly in everyone's best interest to give control of each party back to each party itself, and then let those parties fund their own means (caucus, primary or otherwise) to pick their candidates.
I also do see the expediency of trying to safeguard boards from partisan political shenanigans, especially in order to lessen opportunities for graft and corruption based on an electoral majority's successful candidate(s) turning around to pack the bureaucracy with "loyal" folks who then have little effective oversight or restraint from doing potential evil. My issue here is that this potential evil seems only perceived by parties when it carries potential to damage their partisan political interests against their foes, and what is thus most often lost is concern for the interests of "We The People" overall. License Commissioners, for example, have a profound influence on commercial looked-the-other-way malfeasance, and observing what goes on in Washington with our budgets, and people like Mitch McConnell getting billions in pork in return for voting a certain way on a bill, it's not uncommon for it to become a bunch of hogs dividing up the spoils from the trough amidst themselves while others go hungry. Here in Massachusetts, and no offense intended to your party affiliation, the D's have such an electoral advantage, that throttling board seats by party designation mostly serves to cheat unenrolled citizens of a proportional right/opportunity to serve. Balance would seem to need to be maintained along some other scale in order to be both effective and fair.
From our Founders:
"The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals; it is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole people that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good. It is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a constitution of government, to provide for an equitable mode of making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation and a faithful execution of them; that every man may, at all times, find his security in them."
So, piss of with your 'confiscated' BS. Take that Freestater claptrap up to NH.
Should political parties fund their own elections? Maybe. I'd like to know more about the history of it and what alternatives there are.
I stand by "confiscated", and I would further suggest your vulgarity serves no purpose here. Why is it so offensive to you that I might object to be paying taxes so you can run your private political racket on the public dime? It's all a big "us vs them" thing to you, isn't it. At some point, if you should ever grow to care about the public good ahead of your interest to be part of the party who decides what they think the public good might be, maybe you might understand. Until then? Please learn to be civil.
"Independents vs Party Members is sort of like the question of if Atheism is a religion?"
I'd disagree there. There are good emperical studies that demonstrate the vast majority of self identified independents actually lean significantly toward one party or the other.
Atheists don't typically 'lean' toward theism.
I see Mr Lynne's point, if we accept that a large majority of Independents aren't independent, but rather hiding in plain sight. That, however, adds to the view that the six Lowell Commission slots reserved for members of the two major political parties do need to be so reserved and Independents clamoring for a shot at the slots are perhaps being disingenuous.
How do we know Independents are independent?
On the other hand, if Independents are truly independent, then I like my analogy.
Regards — Cliff
Cliff, can you see no presumption of privilege in your supposition that independents might need to be excluded on the premise that they might tend to lean one way or the other? Does a possibility of preference somehow justify that one subset minority of the electorate should be given pre-emptive hegemony over a portion of the seats regardless of share of the electorate? The two major parties should just be "grandfathered" in to perpetual power?
Two problems I have with this: First, even given a presumption that every individual is a political wolf whenever they might be in unenrolled sheep's clothing, this still does not answer the concern that a third party may at some point in the future represent a larger portion of the electorate than the entrenched D's and R's. But, secondly, and most important, adherence to any, all or no political agenda should not become punishment against a citizen's right to serve in government, and a litmus test for their suitability for public service in any capacity.
Or, put another way: How are the prescribed privileges of our two major political parties not together the same as those enjoyed by the Communist Party in China by itself? Speaking from outside of both, and observing the way our government currently works, I would say things here bear more than just a passing resemblance, save the possibility that we can't figure out how to govern ourselves even so.
Kad
I don't think it is that the law means only Democrats and Republicans forever. When the Republican Party implodes, as has recently been predicted (you know they are the ones who will get blamed for the most recent shutdown, not the Democrats who refused to pass the House Republican CR), some third party will float to toward the top and become the new second party here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Libertarians, for example.
As for "presumption of privilege", I think of it as a right to self defense. What are the commitments of the "Independent"? Why is the now civic minded Independent a person who in the past would not commit to fix the issues within one or another party.
I am ALL for protecting the rights of the unenrolled. I was an unenrolled voter for 30 years. It was out of conviction that as a serving officer I should not have a party affiliation. Then I retired from the Air Force and became an involved resident. In those 30 years, if I had lived somewhere long enough to be part of the community could I have been a great impartial member of an Election or License Commission? You bet your boots. Would others have had reason to trust me, aside from my patina of integrity given me by my military commission? Maybe not. The sociological studies would have suggested to them that I would lean Republican, although as an AIr Force member, possibly the other way. Why take the chance?
And, it isn't like there have not been quiet questions as to voter fraud in Massachusetts.
Regards — Cliff
"Commitments"??? Seriously?
So making your bones as part of an organized political racket is now how we earn citizenship?
I must have missed that part of the Constitution in school.
"Make my bones"? I think that is a bit harsh.
Tell me what you propose? Is it that the License Commission should be three slots (or five), open to anyone? The Election Commission the same?
Then it is the City Manager and the City Council who ensure balance and fairness?
OK.
But will you help to ensure we do not become like Phenix City, Alabama? I know, it is a terrible spelling, but then...
Regards — Cliff
Your fear of Democrats, rivaled only by Democrat fears of Republicans, masks the only legitimate concern, which is (and should always be nothing but) the Public Interest.
To put it bluntly, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts lacks a functioning Republican Party at the municipal level in many (most?) municipalities, and there certainly isn't one to speak of here in the City of Lowell. From the public's perspective, it has to be acknowledged that rules written to balance Democrat hegemony with Republican offsets on particular boards like the License Commission and the Election Commission serve only to grant unearned and disproportionate political power to individuals opting to designate themselves as Republican, and I'll tell you right now I know plenty of people who have registered that way for exactly that reason. I would further point out that this is why Massachusetts Republicans would be identified as left-wing Democrats in the majority of other states.
If you sincerely would like to know what it looks like from outside the two rival circus tents, I will tell you that it looks like a bald power grab on the part of Democrats who, as long as they pay lip service to the (imaginary) existence to legitimate opposition, are granted license (bad pun, I know) to do most anything they please. The system is broken.
All that politically-restricted board nominations accomplish here is to exclude the plurality of unenrolled citizens from serving and offsetting the power of un-practically-restrained Democrat party operatives.
And, no, I will not join a party at a local level that is populated by so many demonstrated misanthropes at a national level in order to accomplish this as would otherwise be necessary under the current rules. If expanding the number of board seats to guarantee representation of unenrolled voters is suggested, I will support that suggestion. If erasing the party requirement from the qualifications of service were suggested, I would be in even greater favor.
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