County Shenanigans (Politics As Usual)
Amazing! Here in King County, Washington state, we have one of the most corrupt county councils in America, if not the most corrupt, and a majority of them are up for re-election this year (5 of 9), but only one of them, Reagan Dunn, has known challengers: the chairman of the Party of Commons, Mark Greene, and a town clerical worker named Beverly Tonda. As of today, neither of the challengers have filed. We're not making any allegations so far, but it's not unheard of in politics for surrogates to be put up to running by sympathizers of the incumbent, if not in fact by "lieutenants" from the incumbent's campaign, to dilute the vote of the strongest challenger.
This King County Council is the same council that tried to make it extremely hard to amend the county charter by putting up a ballot question (which is very easy for them to do; they don't have to collect petition signatures) that would have doubled the number of signatures for lay citizens to put up ballot questions. We are talking about tens of thousands of petition signatures. The King County Council tried to put in deceptive language on the ballot that would have confused the electorate, which is exactly what they wanted, so that voters would not know exactly what they were up to. Fortunately, political activist Tim Eyman saw through these shenanigans and got the ballot language changed. We don't always go along with Eyman's initiatives, but he is a defender of the initiative and ballot question process, and somebody needs to be the watchguard for these rights or they would be taken away. The council trick didn't work in this case, as the voters voted down this particular scheme.
This same council also decided that they knew better than James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and other creators of the United States Constitution on how to run elections; Madison & Co. put few conditions on those running for public office (notwithstanding the obvious discriminations of the era) other than certain age prerequisites, and that the candidate live in the jurisdiction or state that he was running in. However, the King County Council decided to mandate certain skill qualifications for certain elected officials, which effectively gives the King County electorate less choice in whom to vote for. This council has effectively and arrogantly chosen for themselves which candidates can run for office instead of letting the voters sort out qualifications on their own.
This same council also uses taxpayer funded mailing privileges in excess, despite the well known county budget woes and deficit. The mail they send out is little more than disguised campaign fliers, that gives them even more of an advantage in elections than what they already get from the contributions from their corporate paymasters.
This is a corrupt bunch for sure. Time to give them a well deserved trip to the unemployment office come next January.
Post-script:
You can read more about Mark Greene's candidacy for the King County Council in District 9 by clicking on the title link above. Thank you!
[revised on 6/3/09]
Copyright 2008 - 2009, Party of Commons TM
This King County Council is the same council that tried to make it extremely hard to amend the county charter by putting up a ballot question (which is very easy for them to do; they don't have to collect petition signatures) that would have doubled the number of signatures for lay citizens to put up ballot questions. We are talking about tens of thousands of petition signatures. The King County Council tried to put in deceptive language on the ballot that would have confused the electorate, which is exactly what they wanted, so that voters would not know exactly what they were up to. Fortunately, political activist Tim Eyman saw through these shenanigans and got the ballot language changed. We don't always go along with Eyman's initiatives, but he is a defender of the initiative and ballot question process, and somebody needs to be the watchguard for these rights or they would be taken away. The council trick didn't work in this case, as the voters voted down this particular scheme.
This same council also decided that they knew better than James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and other creators of the United States Constitution on how to run elections; Madison & Co. put few conditions on those running for public office (notwithstanding the obvious discriminations of the era) other than certain age prerequisites, and that the candidate live in the jurisdiction or state that he was running in. However, the King County Council decided to mandate certain skill qualifications for certain elected officials, which effectively gives the King County electorate less choice in whom to vote for. This council has effectively and arrogantly chosen for themselves which candidates can run for office instead of letting the voters sort out qualifications on their own.
This same council also uses taxpayer funded mailing privileges in excess, despite the well known county budget woes and deficit. The mail they send out is little more than disguised campaign fliers, that gives them even more of an advantage in elections than what they already get from the contributions from their corporate paymasters.
This is a corrupt bunch for sure. Time to give them a well deserved trip to the unemployment office come next January.
Post-script:
You can read more about Mark Greene's candidacy for the King County Council in District 9 by clicking on the title link above. Thank you!
[revised on 6/3/09]
Copyright 2008 - 2009, Party of Commons TM
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