Thursday, May 22, 2008
Why block party participation in city elections?
From the RoundTable blog
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Bill Bestpitch
Bestpitch, of Roanoke, is the first vice chair of the Roanoke City Democratic Committee. He is also a former member of Roanoke City Council.
The Roanoke Times editorial staff seems to be developing a penchant for imagining problems where none exists. The latest example is the May 19 editorial, "No need for partisanship."
The "problem" you identify is the nomination of candidates for Roanoke City Council and mayor by political parties. You fail to explain the nature of the problem in any detail, focusing instead on the obstacles to your recommended solution. You do imply that nonpartisan elections might reduce bitterness and produce "even more viable candidates" without offering any justification for such conclusions.
Your concerns might make some sense if Roanoke had a history of repeated re-nomination and re-election of party candidates without regard to qualifications or performance. However, that's not what the record shows, especially if we look back further than the last two election cycles you reference.
In 2000, two incumbent council members were defeated in their bids for re-nomination, and the incumbent mayor lost to the nominee of the opposing party. In 2002, only one incumbent council member sought re-nomination and re-election, so two new candidates were elected.
The 2004 election brought a repeat of the events of 2000 for two incumbent council members -- only the names were changed. The incumbent mayor did not seek re-election, giving Roanoke its third mayor in three terms.
In 2006, three candidates running as independents defeated a broad field of nominees from both parties. As you point out, one incumbent city council member was not renominated in 2008, another ran unsuccessfully as an independent rather than seek re-nomination, and the incumbent mayor was defeated by an independent.
With no shortage of candidates or turnover, what arguments support the need for even more viable candidates? Worse than your failure to produce any is your blatant misrepresentation of the city charter and state law.
Contrary to your assertions, there is no state law that requires Roanoke to "run its municipal elections through the party mill." As the last several election cycles clearly demonstrate, there is nothing in the city charter to discourage, much less prevent, candidates from bypassing the party nomination process.
What you are really advocating is a prohibition of party nominees. In other words, you want to stop citizens from voluntarily joining together in a group process to select candidates -- the antithesis of your supposed preference for public participation in open government. Independent candidates are required to obtain only 125 individual signatures, a far smaller figure than the number of Democrats who participated in any of the nominations of their candidates in the elections mentioned above. (I am not privy to the number of Republicans who were involved in their nominations.)
Of course, in cities with charters that proscribe partisan elections, the parties are not disengaged from elections. If you visit the Web site of either state party headquarters on the day after a municipal election, you will find them celebrating their candidates who were elected as "independents" after they were recruited, endorsed and supported by local party committees.
Rather than criticize the partisan process, perhaps you could encourage the reporters for The Roanoke Times to cover more thoroughly the candidates and campaigns, as well as the consequences of the decisions made by incumbents. Too often, all we get is two or more opposing viewpoints, without objective analysis of their validity. Or is that too much to ask?
