Local politics
I'm feeling good about the political health of my county this evening. We have four local races, and while the early and mail-in tallies are not great in three of them, I didn't feel strongly about any of those races, more a matter of personal preference. The important race was to replace our County Attorney, who also is our only felony prosecutor. This has been a dreadful scandal in my community, and in recent weeks I was beginning to worry whether my neighbors were going to rise up properly and vote her out. We went to a great deal of trouble to run a good opponent and to get the word out. We don't have full results yet, but the tally of early and mail-in ballots shows the challenging taking 76% of the vote, which is very, very good news. Early voting doesn't always split the same way as election-day voting, but a lead like 76% doesn't get overturned.
I think having separately elected lawyers is one of the biggest weaknesses of state and local governments.
ReplyDeleteI have less of a problem with elected lawyers than I do with entrenched politicians in general.
ReplyDeleteArticle V of our Articles of Confederation had the right idea, that limit would be easily enough adapted to our current government structure all up and down the government hierarchy.
All it would take is a Constitutional Amendment.
Eric Hines
Update: the final numbers echoed the early voting: the County Attorney is out, and we'll have a new member of the Commissioners Court who tends to be an ally for me in many issues, which is nice.
ReplyDeleteCool. Congratulations, T.
ReplyDeleteEric Hines
Great work.
ReplyDeleteI cast one of 21 votes cast, all day long, in our local Democratic primary. I don't know how many Republicans voted, but apparently I have a large share of the party in my precinct! I'm 4.7% of the electorate.
That's about what the numbers looked like here, too. It's a small county, and only about 10% Dem. Some of the D vote crossed over so as to have a voice in the local elections, while others probably decided it was more important to express a view in the presidential primary.
ReplyDelete