Recently, I posted some thoughts about partisan political activities. In that post I wrote that “Our elected officials are the ones who are breaking our trust and we are not holding them accountable for their behavior.” It’s true, but what can we do about it?
What if, we made all political offices nonpartisan? I like my Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition because it helps me put some focus in my thinking and it defines nonpartisan as follows:
“non·par·ti·san adj (1885) : not partisan; esp : free from party affiliation, bias, or designation < ballot> <a board> non·par·ti·san·ship n”
Let’s think about this for a few moments. If a political office were nonpartisan, we would not have the direct controls of political parties involved in selecting our candidates – that would be different. If a political office were nonpartisan, we wouldn’t have the political parties controlling primary elections and all the infighting that brings to our current process – I could like this because it would shorten the political campaign season by as much as a couple of months. When the election was over and the people we elected showed up to be sworn into office, they wouldn’t have the obvious groupings of political parties to divide them even if some of them were members of a political party – that might be a good thing. And, if political offices were nonpartisan, the political parties would not be controlling the process of redistricting our state and, just maybe, we could avoid some of that gerrymandering activity that currently rigs our voting precincts and districts in favor of the political party in power – we might really like that. Imagine a political process that is less influenced by political parties at all levels from Federal to Local – would you find that to be appealing?
Perhaps we could step into some thoughts about human nature with this idea on the table. Even if the candidate we elected were a member of a political party, we would still expect that person to behave in a more nonpartisan way as he or she represented all of our interests so the political parties would not command the same lock-step allegiance that they now do. If our elected official became too cozy with a political party or any other special interest group, we would have a clear reason for electing someone else at the next election.
This idea might be appealing to some so we should ask why the Federal Government offices are partisan offices in the first place. The Constitution tells us in Paragraph (1) of Article 1, Section 4:
“(1) The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.”
So, our State Legislatures are the ones to decide if the offices should be partisan or nonpartisan. In my State of Washington, I can find the relevant text in our Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 29A.04.110 – Partisan Office where it states:
“”Partisan office” means a public office for which a candidate may indicate a political party preference on his or her declaration of candidacy and have that preference appear on the primary and general election ballot in conjunction with his or her name. The following are partisan offices:
“(1) United States senator and United States representative;
“(2) All state offices, including legislative, except (a) judicial offices and (b) the office of superintendent of public instruction;
“(3) All county offices except (a) judicial offices and (b) those offices for which a county home rule charter provides otherwise.”
I come away from this with the understanding that the Senators and Representatives from each State could be partisan or nonpartisan according to the wishes of each State. The method of making such a change probably varies from State to State, but the requirement is up to us – We the People get to decide.
Another observation would be that while an office might be designated as partisan nothing in that designation stipulates or commands the sort of lockstep obedience to party orthodoxy we are currently seeing. Nope, that kind of mindless obedience is a personal choice made by the elected officials themselves.
Take a moment and think about all the political theater that could be reduced or eliminated if we took the partisanship out of our elections. Imagine how the volume would be turned down on immigration, jobs, Benghazi, spending, healthcare, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israeli/Palestinian Peace, fast and furious gun smuggling, etc.. What do you think?
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This would be a hybrid solution that takes advantage of the best parts of the single-payer system, namely the lowered cost of medical care, while allowing the free-market principle of competition to keep utilization in check and inspire innovation among insurers and medical providers.