Don't let the PCC hide info about candidates

At tomorrow night's Portsmouth Town Council meeting, Portsmouth Concerned Citizens (PCC) President Larry Fitzmorris has an agenda item asking the Council to place a change to the Town Charter eliminating partisan elections on the November ballot.

I'll admit — as a member of the Democratic "core," I certainly have a dog in this fight. But I would argue that, objectively, there are good reasons to oppose this on the basis of the information it would withhold from voters.

I believe in an informed electorate. Why would the PCC, which nominally supports transparency, support an initiative to deny information to voters? Just ask yourself: Who benefits? Not candidates from any party. Not the voters who will know less about their choices.

Gosh, could it be that the PCC might think they'd find it easier to get people onto the Council and School Committee if they didn't have those pesky "D" or "R" labels to worry about? Naaah, that would be just too cynical. Right?

I can't make the meeting — tomorrow night is the first meeting of the school transition advisory committee — so I've sent this note to the Town Council. Hope you'll consider speaking out as well. You can reach the Town Council at these e-mail addresses: hlittle@portsmouthri.com, dcanario@portsmouthri.com, kgleason@portsmouthri.com, khamilton@portsmouthri.com, jplumb@portsmouthri.com, jseveney@portsmouthri.com

To the Council:
The proposed PCC change to the Town Charter to covert local elections to "non-partisan" will deprive the taxpayers of Portsmouth of important information about candidates, and should be rejected.

As a voter, I want to know as much about candidates as possible when making an informed decision. Stripping party affiliation does not benefit the voter -- it only benefits candidates who do not want this information disclosed.

The PCC motto is a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "Information is the currency of Democracy." I urge the Council to respect that ideal, rather than the PCC's current tactics. Please do not support this change to our Charter.

Best Regards.
-John G. McDaid

Full disclosure: I am a life-long Democrat and a member of the Portsmouth Democratic Town Committee. I also like to know who I'm voting for.

Comments

My local politics experience is from a different town, but my experience is that it's hard to apply traditional party political labels to town level offices.

One practical reason to have nonpartisan elections is that it allows federal employees to participate in local elected government. The Hatch Act bans feds from running in partisan elections (yes, this applies to me; that's why I know the restrictions clearly).

For a town with a large population of federal employees, it could make sense. Both Newport and Middletown, I believe, have nonpartisan local elections (or maybe just school boards). Since I'm not from Portsmouth, I don't know if the PCC would claim these people as their supporters or not.

David

Hi, David C...
Thanks for that info. While I can understand the desire to allow Federal employees to run for office, I just don't believe the benefit to a few potential candidates offsets the loss to the rest of the electorate.

At least in Portsmouth, there really are differences among the parties at the local level, and that information should be accessible to voters.

Best Regards.
-j

In the overall scheme of things, party affiliation is a pretty shallow way to determine who to vote for. If the only way you can choose from among candidates is by what party they associate with, then you maybe shouldn't be voting for any candidate. Whatever party you generally vote with, if you take your citizenship seriously you should make a real effort to know what your chosen candidate stands for. If you do that, it doesn't matter if they state their affiliation or not. I generally vote republican, but particularly in local elections I vote on the basis of what I know about the ability and integrity of the candidates as individuals. I have probably voted for more democrat candidates in local elections than republicans. Perhaps it is naive to believe that the citizenry can vote responsibly, but it is also naive to believe that party line voting will produce a better result than trusting the voters to be responsible.

Hi, Evets...
This is the sort of argument that underlies a lot of the rhetoric about the master lever and nonpartisan elections, and frankly, I find it insulting to voters. I don't think it is "naive to believe that the citizenry can vote responsibly," rather, I believe that my friends and neighbors -- like you -- do just that. Stripping party labels in order to "force" citizens to vote responsibly is nanny-statism at its worst.

Nor does having party affiliations make it any more difficult to do exactly what you suggest -- knowing what your chosen candidate stands for. When you have party affiliations, you know a piece of information about the candidate: they have chosen to self-identify as a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Cool Moose, etc. Why would having an additional piece of information like that make it harder for me to know about the candidate?

I just don't see the problem here. Nor do I see evidence in Portsmouth of overwhelming party-line voting. Look at the past few elections in town. We seem to vote for Republicans, Independents, and Democrats for local office in a way that generally represents the mix in the community. This is a "solution" to a problem I don't believe we have.

And just one more thing. Democrat is the noun; Democratic is the adjective. One would say, "I have probably voted for more Democratic candidates." As someone who generally votes Republican, you may not be aware of this, but this deliberate distortion of the name of the party has a long history of use by conservatives as a slur. You can learn more at Wikipedia.

Best Regards.
-j

evetS:

I take my citizenship responsibilities very seriously. That has nothing to do with party line voting. You are mixing together two unrelated ideas, (1) that people should be informed voters and (2) the PCC wants to hide party affiliation from the voters. Those two things are unrelated. I believe well-informed voters should know everything about the candidates, including what party, if any, the candidate belongs to. I make a special effort to know all I can about the candidates for local office here in Portsmouth. I read the papers, I watch the candidate forums, I look at their campaign literature -- everything. I even don't mind getting their stuff down at the dump. I can read it and then recycle it!

My objection to this PCC proposal to change our town charter boils down to this: Who the heck are the PCC (or anyone else) to tell me what information is relevant to me or not. This isn't about voting "party line", it IS about keeping information about a candidate hidden from the voters. Whether a candidate chooses to be a member of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, or no party at all, means something to me. It's not the only thing I look at, but it is a factor.

As of now, I have a right to see that information on the ballot. The PCC wants to take that right away from me. I find that highly offensive!