Archive for November 25th, 2008

Some cities have non partisan elections like; L.A., Chicago, Houston and some have democratic elections like; Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Here in Arizona ALL cities EXCEPT Tucson have non-partisan elections. Even the 1 square mile city of South Tucson voted this past November to go non-partisan.

Tucson has been ruined over the past 40-plus years because of politics — bad politics. Individuals are elected to office with more loyalty to their political parties and personal ambitions than to the residents of their city, county or state. Politics creep in and affect our governments ability to fill pot holes and pick up garbage.

Back in late 1999 and early 2000’s a group of business and civic leaders came together to propose a ballot initiative to change the Tucson charter to implement NON-PARTISAN elections in the City.  Read The Weekly - HERE.  Long story short SALC took the lead  and put together a cast of characters to work on the charter changes. 

The big players are already in place. The Leadership Council’s members include attorney Si Schorr, land speculator Don Diamond, car dealers Jim Click and Buck O’Rielly, Realtor Hank Amos, real estate developer Joe Cesare, developer Roy Drachman, construction mogul Hal Ashton, AZ Mail Order king Paul Baker, attorney John Munger and Raytheon Missile Systems president Joe Coyle.

Johnston says that the proposed charter changes include:

· expanding the City Council wards from six to eight;

· providing the mayor the right to vote on issues before the Council, including the right to be counted for a quorum;

· replacing partisan elections for city offices with nonpartisan elections.

Easing the annexation of unincorporated areas into the city was also an implicit part of last year’s plan. Leadership Council board member Schorr pointed out in a July 7, 2000 guest editorial in the Arizona Daily Star that “increased wards allow for and encourage unincorporated areas near the city to consider annexation with the knowledge they can help form new city wards.”

Johnston recently acknowledged that facilitating annexation is still the main reason his group wants to implement changes to the charter.

Annexation remains a major priority of city officials, too. Andrew Greenhill, Walkup’s chief of staff, said the mayor last week asked Pima County’s state legislative delegation to consider a bill that would remove barriers to annexation.

Greenhill could not say what the mayor specifically had in mind when he put forward his ideas. Walkup was unavailable for comment. Without changes to current state law, a large-scale annexation could take years to accomplish.

Democratic mayor Volgy set out on a clear path to ensure that the party and the power would shift for the next twenty plus years. From a previous post on this blog:

The city’s anti-business movement “got legs” during the terms of Democratic mayors Tom Volgy (1987-91) and George Miller (1991-99). Both had won council seats in 1977.

“As no-growthers, they started to empower extremists and staff to follow their lead,” the SAHBA director said. “The people they hired decades ago are killing today’s redevelopment efforts. Many have moved up into policy-making positions with their negative attitudes toward progress.”

Regarding the conflicts of business versus neighborhoods, Volgy once said, “It’s hard for business groups to understand what the neighborhoods want, and vice versa. It’s very hard to put themselves in each other’s shoes.”

The way we elect our political leaders empowers party bosses and neighborhood activists at the expense of the public as a whole. Due to party enrollment and gerrymandered districts, few elections are competitive. Winning the Democratic primary is tantamount to election in Tucson. 

The unwritten water cooler talk in democratic circles is that any hope for future annexation of surrounding communities will be a challenge. It seems that Tucson Democrats are enjoying their blockbuster voter rolls. It’s a known fact that Tucson has a high democratic voter advantage and the surrounding communities of the Catalina Foothills and at one time Green Valley have  higher Republican party voter rolls. 

As long Tucson has a city full of die-hard yellow dog Democrats, who believe in FDR style government social collectivism with an unbreakable determination to maintain the status quo at any cost, and one of the highest percentages of government sector workers of any spot in the country, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Rabid, frothing, vitriolic political partisanship in Tucson is part and parcel of the mess that the area has become. The Democratic Party and Organized Neighborhoods have been in bed together so long that both fear any separation.

Bottom up government as is being proposed by Jonathan Paton, not Top Down government that has destroyed the areas prosperity, is a real-life possibility for changing the landscape. But nobody seems to want to get out of their Lazy Boy, their Barstool or their bench at the Union Hall long enough to do anything about it.

It’s pathetic and sick and it breaks my heart.

 From National Civic League - Model City revisions on the Pros and Cons of non partisan elections:

Pros: Nonpartisan elections may be appropriate for most cities because they downplay partisan differences between candidates that do not necessarily match significant policy differences that are salient at the time of an election. In this sense, they avoid an unnecessary source of divisiveness in a community. As a result, voters can focus on candidates’ policy stands and problem-solving skills. It takes the focus off of party affiliation, and places it on what makes sense for the city. An incumbent mayor may be the target of the opposition party organization on the state level because he or she is a potential candidate for higher office, not because of the quality of performance in the mayor’s office. It can make it easier for members of minority parties to be elected. The ability to hold nonpartisan elections promotes local autonomy since the outcome of local elections is less likely to be determined by national or state political current, and it demonstrates that city politics differ substantially from state politics.

Partisan differences may be relevant to local policy decisions, e.g., positions on privatization and tax cuts at the local level may correspond to party differences, and nonpartisan elections can be the venue of efforts to mobilize party supporters. These efforts are less likely to have substantial impact when the partisan connection is weak. When elections are partisan, however, parties will be structurally connected to local elections regardless of relevance. A consequence of partisan elections is that candidates run first in party primaries with the winners facing each other in the general election. If one party with a substantial majority has more than one strong candidate, only one will survive to be considered by all the voters (including unaffiliated voters) in the general election, which typically receives far more media attention and a larger voter turnout. In nonpartisan elections, the top two vote getters in the primary, regardless of party affiliation, would be the candidates in the general election.

In sum, there can be advantages to party involvement in elections, but the institution of partisan elections requires that party always be the dominant feature in city campaigns. City governments should recognize that nonpartisan elections can depress voter turnout among voters with lower socio-economic status and take other measures to encourage voter participation and citizen participation generally.

Cons:Nevertheless, partisan elections have advantages. Partisanship is part of politics even when not officially recognized. Parties can help candidates run better campaigns. Party affiliation conveys information to voters, who for the most part do not have time to evaluate the effectiveness or distinguish the claims of each candidate. This is especially important for voters who without a party cue would be less likely to identify their stakes in the outcome of an election. Partisan elections offset the overrepresentation of minority parties. Finally, partisan elections can assist voters of lower socio-economic status. The mobilization efforts of parties offset the informational and resource disadvantages of poorer, less educated voters who are less likely to identify with organizations other than political parties that might work to promote turnout.

 

From National League of Cities - HERE

Election systems in American cities are determined by the nature of the council members’ constituency (See Local Elections) and by the presence or absence of party labels on the ballot.  With regard to the second feature, there are two types of ballots for city council members.  In partisan elections, the party affiliation of the candidate is indicated on the ballot, whereas in nonpartisan elections it is not. 

According to a 2001 survey,  77% of the responding cities have nonpartisan elections, and 23% have partisan elections.  (See Form of Government and Type of Election in 30 Largest Cities)

Proponents of nonpartisan ballots suggest that:

• political parties are irrelevant to providing services; experts and professionals should determine the service needs of the constituents.

Proponents for partisan elections argue that:

• Absence of party labels confuses voters; a voter who must choose from among a group of candidates who he or she knows nothing about will have no meaningful basis in casting a ballot;
• In absence of party ballot, voters will turn to whatever cue is available, and often this cue turns out to be the ethnicity of a candidate’s name;
• Non-partisanship tends to produce elected officials more representative of the upper socioeconomic strata than of the general populace and aggravate the class bias in voting turnout, namely because in true non-partisan systems there are no organizations of local party workers to bring lower-class citizens to the polls on election day; and
• Non-partisanship destroys resources important to coalition building and effective governance.