Turning over rocks

I came to the decision to run for local office with much reluctance.  (And you should hear my husband on the subject.  I think we can be sure he won't be standing around on podiums gazing at me with admiring support, or pressing the flesh at community gatherings.  I get the impression he doesn't enjoy crowds.)

Nevertheless, having concluded I had to step up and that was that, I have found that there are some compensations.  There's an endless fascination in finding out how things work.  Whether it's getting a chance to look inside a water treatment plant or learning where local government gets its powers and funding and seeing how the roads get paved and the trash gets picked up, the hidden mechanisms all around us are a constant source of joy and learning.  God made me a curious person and a quick study.  It's good to put it to use.

What I'm seeing is that the ramshackle machine that makes the trains run is staffed with equal amounts of people who have no clue and people of amazing competence and good character.  You have to find the latter and minimize the damage from the former.  The trick of politics seems to be to encourage a system that makes both of those tasks easier.

Texas has a funny wrinkle in its criminal prosecution system.  Normally a State District Attorney handles criminal cases for several rural counties, while a County Attorney in each county handles civil matters, including advising the County Commissioners on their contracts and their statutory duties and powers.  The Texas State legislature can, however, grant a county's (inexplicable) request to opt out of the local State DA system and give criminal prosecution powers over to the County Attorney.  From then on, the local DA will stay out of your county and perhaps lose interest in your problems.  If your County Attorney's background is, say, real estate, that may not seem like such a great idea.  If in addition she is given to obscure, intractable quarrels with the local police force and suddenly announces that she will prosecute no further cases referred by that body, things come unwound pretty quickly.  Suddenly we all have to turn to the thorny question, "How does one remove a sitting County Attorney, especially without any cooperation from a Commissioners Court that apparently doesn't see the problem?"  It's become a lively Facebook discussion, which I call a healthy thing.

My campaign is largely summed up in what is supposed to be George Washington's warning about fire being a dangerous tool and a terrible master.  We get a lot of droughts here; people who let their "controlled burns" get out of control come in for a lot of squinty-eyed ill humor.  I tell my prospective voters that, when you're thinking of handing over a new power to your elected officials, it's like setting a fire.  You don't do it until you've cleared a little area around the fire pit and gotten a water hose charged and ready.  Before we elect someone, not only should we find out a lot about his character and abilities, we should get conversant with the procedures for booting him back out of office.  Do we have recall elections?  What about impeachment?  Who has standing to get one of these procedures started?  How hard is it?  Do we have to go to court?  When will he be up for re-election?  How long does it take to get ready to run someone to challenge him?

From Facebook I judge that most people look at a situation like this and think "I'll write to the Governor," or may "to the Attorney General."  No great harm in that, but it discharges a sense of urgency without being very likely to produce results.  I keep coming back to the old lesson that there is not, and never will be, any substitute for people to organize and rule themselves, starting locally.  We can govern ourselves, or we will be governed.  As Benjamin Franklin said,  "A republic, if you can keep it."

It's also occurred to me lately that there's a swath of the Republican party that divides the world into "golf cronies" and "pool boys."  For me that's the GOPe in a nutshell.  What I want to know about a neighbor is:  Does he take responsibility for himself?  Can his neighbors count on him?  I have many neighbors I can count on, and it's not their incomes or their wardrobes that make the difference.