It’s a local election year – even though we’re already tired of the presidential candidates wooing us for next year, and still getting used to the new governor we elected last year.
Two things concern me here. First, the candidates for city council and school board are a generic list, lacking the party labels we see when electing county commissioners, sheriffs and district attorneys, or state and federal officials. Second, I’m bothered that the ballot came in the mail.
Neither is good. The principles of self-government in our republic, consent of the governed and limitations on power, would work better if political parties weren’t excluded at the local level – and if personal responsibility hadn’t been overtaken by mass convenience in the voting process itself.
My wife and I vote, for example, in Centennial and the Cherry Creek school district. For city council in our ward, the options are George Shen and Patrick Anderson. For school board, we can pick between Jim O’Brien and Jennifer Herrera for one seat, Steve de Carteret and Randy Perlis for another. While I’m grateful to them for running, who are these people?
One learns that the second name in each pair is a Democrat, while O’Brien and de Carteret “espouse Republican principles” but aren’t registered as such, and Shen is a Republican but barely out of college and in various ways not ready for prime time.
It’s also dismaying to see council candidates running unopposed in two of Centennial’s remaining three wards, and to find that the Democratic incumbent in another ward has lined up his Republican fellow councilmen as endorsers against two GOP challengers. Two of Cherry Creek’s four director districts likewise feature unopposed candidates.
These inscrutable nonpartisan local elections are a legacy of the Progressive era 100 years ago, when faith in “scientific expertise” as a government panacea convinced many Americans that party platforms and loyalties were but a vehicle of selfishness, destined for history’s junkyard. What naïvete.
Our country’s broad, stable two-party system of R’s and D’s, enlivened by feisty upstarts such as the Greens and Libertarians, in fact performs a hugely valuable service for busy citizens both at election time and in between.
During campaigns, the parties recruit, screen and assist candidates, providing voters a recognized “brand” that signals what approach to government is on offer. The result is fewer empty ballot slots, fewer flaky office-seekers, and less guesswork when you sit down to vote. And once elected, party-affiliated candidates work together better and have a clearer standard to uphold; insider self-dealing and stealth are less rife.
A free society thrives on competition and information. You can’t have too much of either. On that logic, as a state senator, I repeatedly sought legislation to invite political parties into our school board races and RTD elections. My bills never stood a chance, though. Democrats feigned horror at the “specter of partisanship,” and some Republicans gullibly believed them. Game over.
As for mail ballots themselves – almost the only kind being used this fall – a voter-fraud nightmare awaits as indifferent addressees toss them by the thousands, easy pickings for trash-bin scavengers. The culprit: a conspiracy of laziness between election officials and the public.
Voting is one of our sacred trusts as Americans. Is this the best we can do?
John Andrews (andrewsjk@aol.com) is a fellow with the Claremont Institute and a past president of the Colorado Senate. He hosts “Backbone Radio” on Sundays at 5 p.m. on 710-KNUS.
