Hot News!
• Freestore Foodbank Battle of the Blogs!
• Cincinnati NAACP President shares update on Cincinnati Retirement Plan
Contact Us
v mail, fax: (214) 481-6464
e mail: click here
On today's date in The Beacon archives, we published:
•Fans find reality not reported by Enquirer (2007)•Open Letter to John Pepper about Disney Characters (2006)
•More Lack of Coverage from The Cincinnati Enquirer (2006)
Events
 |
|
|
Friday, October 10, 2008
Portune’s Deal, Unopposed Republican Judges, and the Case for Proportional Representation
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
Just take a look at how many Republican judges are unopposed in Hamilton County. In a year with record-high voter registration in the Black community and tons of Democratic voters likely to be casting ballots, the Hamilton County Democratic Party couldn’t find any candidates to oppose all these judges. Isn’t that extraordinary? Or, isn’t it indicative of the kind of back-room deals people like Todd Portune engaged, securing his own employment while leaving people like Joe Deters unopposed. Though Proportional Representation would not affect judicial races, these deals by established Democrats show the need for implementing the system here in Cincinnati.
At the end of the day, voters are not given a choice in Hamilton County—not when it comes to the judges. Just look at the races where Republican judges actually do face opposition, and ask yourself how it ended up that way.
Republican Pat DeWine faces opposition from Democrat Norma Davis, a former president of the Cincinnati NAACP.
Interestingly, DeWine broke with his party to oppose last year’s Super-Sized Jail Tax. And several former presidents of the Cincinnati NAACP broke with the vote of their membership driven organization to support the jail, while the NAACP itself led the drive to put the thing on the ballot and take it down.
Doesn’t it look like the Democrats are able to find candidates for the purposes of punishing those who defy the status quo? Meanwhile, the rest of the slate of Republicans are left with a walk-in to their seats?
It just goes to show that Hamilton County, including the City of Cincinnati, does not have a culture of providing choices for voters. Instead of people choosing the candidates that represent their interests, we have shifting political allegiances designed to secure continued employment for those who play the game according to its unspoken rules.
Consider the fact that the Republican Party opposed Issue 8 (the initiative for PR). Don’t they realize, as the minority party in the City limits, that PR could help them gain more representation? Then why did they oppose it?
My sources say it’s because Joe Deters is pissed at Smitherman and the NAACP for saying bad things about him—and allegedly what Joe says goes inside the local leadership of the Hamilton County GOP.
Job security for politicians and political vindictiveness are not supposed to be the inspiration for providing what limited choices voters have at the polls. The local political establishment’s County Club will be broken up if PR passes, and quite frankly that’s the best argument I can conceive as to why you should vote Yes on Issue 8.
• Share This Article!
Listen to this article
|  |
Register
Anonymous comments are allowed, but you can create an account above to stamp your name and to avoid typing the anti-spam code.
If you are not familiar with our rules for leaving comments, click here! The Cincinnati Beacon is not responsible for the contents of any comments. Comments do not represent the views of the moderators of The Cincinnati Beacon.
10 Oct 2008 at 11:26 am | #
I am not really passionately pro or con against PR but have to point out that it seems contradictory for the Beacon to have been such an energetic investigator of any and all charges of malfeasance in the administration of past national, state and local elections under the current rather simplistic electoral system but seem to have no doubts that elections under PR (which I have yet to hear anybody explain in a language that anyone without a Ph.D in political science can understand)will be without question above any charges of fraud.
10 Oct 2008 at 02:18 pm | #
It is not complicated. You rank your votes. If your number one candidate gets more votes than s/he needs, the surplus is proportionately distributed to second choice candidates.
In other words, if Roxanne Qualls gets 1,000 extra votes—and of those who chose her first, half picked Berding for second and half Crowley, that means her second choice ballots are split 50/50 between Berding and Crowley. 500 each.
Get it?
10 Oct 2008 at 07:55 pm | #
Joe Deters makes me sick! He’s pissed at Smitherman because Smither-The-Man is not afraid to challenge the status quo.
11 Oct 2008 at 11:58 pm | #
Dean!
Just how is PR going to alleviate the problems that you list? It is still an at-large method. At-large elections require a lot of money. You, in another thread, complain about the large amounts of money raised by the members of council, yet you won’t support district elections , which require much less dollars to campaign. Because districts are small enough to allow individuals to be heard effectively without costly area-wide TV ads, the candidates don’t have to rely on belonging to one of the three present political parties for support. Districts will castrate the political party’s power at the local level, yet you support PR and denounce districts. I don’t understand your logic.
12 Oct 2008 at 07:50 am | #
The current proposal for districts includes five districts, and four at-large sets.
Five districts means ten or more neighborhoods. It means over 35,000 spread out geographically. And the at-large reps will campaign the same way they ever have. These “super-councilmen” will only need to align with, say, the Westside to maintain business-as-usual. Doesn’t sound much different to me.
And how will these very large districts be gerrymandered anyway? PR eludes such manipulation of the vote inherent in how districts are drawn, and re-drawn.
The history of PR in this very City shows that it takes less money. When the Party bosses overthrew it the first time, big money had more power on the local political scene.
12 Oct 2008 at 11:53 am | #
Ref #5:
What is this current proposal for districts that you mentioned?
I don’t support any hybrid system that compromises the main advantages of districts or that confuses the voters.
The way you describe your idea of this proposed district doesn’t seem much different as you claim. It seems that some are trying to have a system that will fine tuned to a fantasy world that is in the proposer’s mind and that is simply stupid. The voters are human beings which are not easily explained. You PR promoters are suffering from the same delusions. It must be kept simple or the people will distrust it. The people are lazy, uninformed, biased, fearful, apprehensive, skeptical, frustrated, complacent, etc. to the point that many feel that no government is the best government.
The people want a government that is not intrusive. They want a government that doesn’t bother them. Look at the last eight years; they didn’t hang Bush because they are more comfortable being in denial.
You give the people the power to pick their representative and they don’t want to be bothered until the next election but they want to have the feeling that they will be heard if needed. They don’t want to keep petitioning, demonstrating, or writing letters because they have their own lives to live. Many don’t even want to declare a party affiliation, but they want to have the power to be heard if needed. And they are not heard if the government is removed form them and they feel frustrated because to be heard takes too much effort.
This is a local government; it is not a national government. We don’t have to follow the design of federal and state government because the state and national design doesn’t fit local needs.
To meet the theoretical needs of those, who are asking for “super-councilmen”, can be dealt with by having district representatives determining the mayor. This is where the “fine tuning” of the local government form needs to done and not at general elections.