The bill that Buddy Carter recently presented to the State Legislature would require that the sheriff, the superior court clerk and the Chatham County Commissioners be nonpartisan elections. This is a bad idea for everyone-both the voting (as well as non-voting!) public and the political parties. There are many good reasons that elections should remain Partisan, but for brevity’s sake here are the top four.
1.Primaries are important. It would be heaven not to see the forests of political signs that sprout up before a Primary. But a primary is helpful in a number of ways. It allows voters to get to know each of the candidates within each party, and usually there are quite a few who run the same position (remember the presidential stable of candidates for each party two years back). Primaries allow voters to narrow down their choices within each party.Without primaries, the general election ballot would be filled with many candidates who people have not gotten to know, and votes are usually so divided that there is no clear winner. This inevitably leads to a runoff. or, simply put, the party who run the most candidates loses.
2. Runoffs are a probability, not just a possibility. when we have to rely on a runoff to fill an office, we often get a winner who doesn’t represent a wide spectrum of the voting public. Runoffs draw a very tiny fraction of people who vote in general elections, which means that winners are elected by a tiny margin of voters, not the larger turnout that voted in the general election. Winning a majority of only 5% of the voting public who showed up for the runoff is not a good example of representational government. For businessmen who think they’ll save on their contribution dollars by eliminating primaries, think again. Parties usually refrain from backing a candidate when there are multiple choices for the Primary, preferring to save their donation money for the general election. A smart businessman does the same. But without primaries, the glut of candidates on the ticket during a general election usually effect a runoff, so parties, special interest groups, and businessmen stand to pay twice to help their candidate of choice to win.
3. There is no such thing as a nonpartisan politician. Forget the popular idea that all nonpartisan elected officials will join hands in glowing admiration of one another and sing Kumbaya whenever they vote on an issue–it just ain’t historically so. Nonpartisan candidates must tailor their campaign rhetoric to appease both parties in order to win an election, but a quick look at their campaign literature will tell you which party they lean toward.You can bet that when the time come to cast votes,they’ll almost always cast them according to their party stripes.Although Chairman Pete Liakakis is rightly proud of the county commission’s history of getting along with one another and voting along nonpartisan lines, the votes on hot-button issues like budgets reveal that the commissioners usually dance with the party that “brung’em.”And there’s nothing wrong with that–it clearly informs the public what their representatives are doing for them and how they act on important issues. When partisan officials work together in a nonpartisan way to help the community, as this county commission has in the past, that is good government.
4. Nonpartisan elections at the local level will make local parties obsolete. The duty of local political parties is to find, groom, fund and help their candidates get elected. Nonpartisan elections would negate this important aspect of political parties. Remember, there will never be nonpartisan elections at the national level of government. Parties represent ideological and cultural groups of constituents, making it easier for the voting public to identify the candidate that best represents their values. Additionally, it is easier for a politician’s party and constituency to hold him accountable for his actions and see that he fulfills his campaign promises. No good blueprint exists for oversight of nonpartisan candidates, so accountability is a gray area.
In fairness, we do not think that judicial positions should be filled by partisan elections.But this bill somewhat sneakily lumps judicial with legislative offices( which for the reasons above should be partisan!) , and uses the example of the sheriff and superior court clerk positions to argue that these offices should not be linked to a partisan ideology. We can’t parse this bill, so we must oppose it in its entirety.
Janice Shay, Chair, Chatham County Democratic Committee
Warren Hickman, Vice Chair, CCDC
Will Claiborne, Vice Chair, CCDC
Randy Moffett, Secretary, CCDC
Jerry Greene, Treasurer, CCDC
Tommy Boondry, Vice Chair, CCDC
This is a Editorial from the Savannah Morning News….
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