Stephan Flister 8/14/2007
A pleasure in my work is meeting new people like city council candidate James Moreno Llanas. In the course of a recent campaign day, he googled himself. One thing he found and shared with me was an entry on a blog run by Al, a small town mayor in northwest Wisconsin. Al describes himself as having an abiding interest in local government. In that post Al asks a question that I want to answer. He asks: 'why should partisan politics enter into the local government arena?'
First, here is Al's entire post:
I like non-partisan local politics. It reduces, not eliminates, the" Us vs. Them" mentality. After all what is partisan about fixing streets, mowing parks, providing police and fire protection, etc? In many areas, partisan politics does permeate local politics. We find this in Maplewood, Minnesota.
James Moreno is running for the Maplewood City Council. On his blog he publicly answers the questions on his DFL (Democrat-Farmer-Labor) questionnaire. The questions start off pretty good. So do the answers. Then we reach the last question...Within the past 15 years have you ever supported a candidate who has run against a DFL- endorsed candidate? Mr. Moreno's answer...Absolutely not. Lifetime DFL member and supporter.
It certainly looks to me that in order to receive the DFL endorsement for a City Council seat you need to be lock step with the State Party on all candidates and issues. Not to just criticize the Democrat candidates, I am sure the Republican questionnaire looks much the same.
WHY? We are talking about fixing streets, mowing parks, providing police and fire protection, etc. The amount of money that is spent on these services can be, and is, argued in Council Chambers across the country. But why on a partisan basis?
Oh, I forgot, it is all about power. It is the power of having elected puppets serving at even the lowest of levels in government for the greater good of the State Party. Not the greater good of the community. What a shame.
Al answers himself with the assertion that it is about power for the party. That is, Al is worried that parties endorse candidates to gain control over streetsweeping.
Given that public safety is involved, that would worry me too. But I think there is a different, and better, answer.
Not only did I welcome the decision of the DFL to begin endorsing candidates in Maplewood, as a delegate I was part of the process. I am also part of a new political action group that is endorsing candidates - the Maplewood Voters Coalition. In short, I am a partisan. But I think partisans want to endorse candidates not to have influence over governance, but to affect voting. By giving money, time, and energy to campaigns we hope to develop a more informed electorate.
Part of informing voters is the obvious work of distributing information - campaign literature, advertisements, voter guides, and the like. An equally, or perhaps more, important aspect is the indirect effect of providing the voter with an expectation about the values and beliefs of the candidate. By values and beliefs, I mean dispositions towards issues like 'what is the proper role of government in a democratic society?', 'what is the proper balance between the individual and the common good?' When somebody says they are endorsed by the Democratic Party, or the Green Party, or the Republican Party, or the Communist Workers Party, I have an immediate and well founded expectation about the range of actions I can expect from that candidate, without knowing anything at all about their stance on this issue or that. Depending on the endorsing party and my own affiliation, that expectation might be mostly positive or mostly negative. From each voter's perspective, that expectation is mostly accurate.
If the only thing a voter knows about a candidate is party affiliation or endorsement, that voter is vastly more informed than someone without that information. If this is true, then it is true whether Al or I like it or not.
If it is any comfort to Al, the DFL is not capable of becoming sufficiently organized to benefit from being at the streetsweeper's controls. But we partisans are eager to watch whether it can have a positive effect on turning out informed voters - informed voters who elect representatives reflecting the voting majority's values and beliefs, representatives who then govern that way.