Add one more thread unraveling in American self-government: local city and school board elections, historically nonpartisan, are now targeted by local party committees, who endorse candidates as “your true Republican [or Democrat] choice.”
This year partisan committees endorsed 116 candidates in Idaho for nonpartisan offices. Our capital city saw Ada County Democrats circulate sign-up sheets to “staff” the campaign of incumbent Mayor Lauren McLean. This is not Idaho’s tradition, and not consistent with our laws.
When authorizing county clerks to hold races for mayor and city council seats, Idaho Code chapter 50, section 406, specifically instructs clerks that “There shall be no mention relating to party.”
The laws allowing clerks to run “partisan” elections specifically authorize parties to put forward names for election (a process known as “nomination”) for only individuals who have won that party’s “primary election.” (See Idaho Code 34-703.)
So, when local party central committees “endorse” a candidate for City Council, that endorsement is prohibited from mention by election administrators. And that central committee is openly violating its authority to name “Party” candidates, as the party membership cast no vote in a primary election. At best, the endorsement reflects preferences from a few dozen local party insiders.
Nonpartisan elections becoming heated battles between party machines is a bad development. Idaho has done it right for over 100 years, and should not now pander to the “anything to stoke outrage” crowd who want everything to become partisan.
First, not everything is partisan, despite what Thomas Mann said. Mann, an early 20th-century Nobel-winning writer, fled Germany after criticizing Hitler for not being “socialist enough.” He complained that “everything is political.” His Frankfurt School sympathizers agreed and started advocating class conflict expand beyond economics to religion, race, art, and family structure.
So was born the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, where every aspect of life, from patching potholes to taking out the trash, is expected to help upend existing power structures. And, of course, as Marx predicted, those in power will react by politicizing their side. To cultural revolutionaries it wasn’t about efficient garbage removal: the goal is the clash and resulting political chaos.
The counter strategy is “don’t go there.” Do not make emptying the trash political. Prove Marx wrong.
Second, former House Speaker Tip O’Neill observed that, in politics, “You have to dance with the one who brung you.” Your power in office depends on loyalty to the partisans who got you elected.
But nonpartisan offices in Idaho desperately need to be free of such loyalties. Tax levies, city services, code enforcement, and policing become intolerable if administered favoring “those who got the current leaders elected.” And appearances matter. Let central committees endorse mayors? If stopped by the mayor’s Chief of Police, are those committee members ticketed?
And third, voters know their own self-interest. The closer decisions are to a citizen’s quality of life, kids’ education, or safety in their community, the more they “own” those decisions. They do not delegate such choices to a party central committee.
This year’s municipal and school district elections are proof. For decades the most powerful county party in Idaho belonged to Canyon County Republicans. This year Canyon GOP leaders broke with tradition and put forward candidates for Caldwell City Council and Caldwell School District.
Of the six candidates endorsed, not one was elected. In the county who taught Idaho why “party” matters, all six “anointed Republican” candidates lost. The question now is, “When inserting ‘party’ where it doesn’t belong, what damage is done to the Republican brand?”
Leftist politicians may be who started using nonpartisan office as platforms for political demagoguery. But everyone else doesn’t have to follow suit. Let voters select nonpartisan officials who will efficiently get nonpartisan work done.
For conservatives, not buying into “everything must be political” is a clear win.
(2) comments
You were doing so well until you had to throw the leftist BS in there.
For once we're in agreement. The leftist position on making everything partisan is, as you say, total BS. But the fact that it is a position "of the left" is indisputable. Today almost all cities of over half-a-million run partisan races for mayor, and they are all controlled by Democrats. Republicans were the last party holding out against making all politics, especially local races, political . . . and even that is changing as pseudo-conservative power-hungry transplants to Idaho insert their "leftist" tendencies.
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