OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR PATRICK
by Clifford Krieger and Lynne Lupien, Move Lowell Forward PAC Co-Chairs
(For additional signatories, see below.)
Recently, a majority of Lowell’s City Council voted to cancel the city’s preliminary election. They argued that it costs too much just to eliminate a few candidates from the November ballot. They told us they were only thinking about the taxpayers. We believe they forgot that the taxpayers are also the voters.
The history of eliminating the primary is mixed in terms of outcomes. Sometimes it helps incumbents and sometimes challengers. That said, the primary should not be used to game the system or change the rules midstream, but to encourage participation — by voters, and by candidates.
The City Council motion became a Home Rule Petition and is now before the state legislature, pending a vote in both houses. Lowell’s state delegation have decided to back the initiative. But the question is, does this waiver to eliminate our preliminary really serve the voters?
It is a fact that it is already difficult to run for City Council, particularly for first timers. It is also a fact that eliminating a preliminary does several things to make this even harder.
The most obvious of the issues is the ballot itself. In a preliminary, the names on the ballot are randomly jumbled. This allows for a fair first contest, where name placement does not affect the outcome. Without this initial contest, the first ballot is in November, with incumbents listed first, and this, coupled with incumbent name recognition, is a barrier to any challenger, no matter how deserving, or how good their campaign.
A second barrier is that without the narrowing down of candidates, the vote is diluted among more candidates, affecting challengers disproportionately. With the winnowing of candidates, the media attention is also subsequently more focused, instead of spread among a larger number. Covering 18 candidates is already a tough job. Covering 22 or more candidates fairly means less media time for all candidates, and this affects challengers the most, as they do not have automatic name recognition.
Finally, the City Council majority also forgot the poll workers in their haste to eliminate the election. Many older city residents enjoy their day of working for the city election, and that income is likely spent locally, making a little contribution to our city’s economy. Candidates spend extra money as well, preparing for two elections. In this tough budget time, any economic activity helps. And the preliminary was already accounted for in this fiscal year’s budget.
And there’s one last, and most important, point to make: that $40,000 is a small price to pay for giving our city’s residents their voice in government. The argument that it isn’t worth having a preliminary because of low voter turnout is a strawman. If, in fact, City Councilors are disturbed by low turnout, perhaps we should be talking about ways to increase it, rather than denying voters their right to a fair democracy. Many of our nation’s greatest citizens fought, bled, and died for the right – ours, and others’ – to vote. So we wonder: why is it acceptable for our government to deny us that right just because an election is not convenient for them?
Co-signatories to this open letter include Lowell City Council candidates Paul Belley, Ryan Berard, Franchesska “Franky” Descoteaux, Jose Gabriel, Michael Holland Sr., Syed Hussain, David Koch, Joesph Mendonca, Benjamin Opara, Raymond Weicker, and James Wojas.
Other signatories include many residents, whose names have been placed on the letter sent to the Governor.
Here are some links to give readers a sense of what is going on.
Lowell Sun:
Lawmakers support waiving Lowell’s preliminary election
http://www.lowellsun.com/today…
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p>22 candidates file nomination papers for City Council; one falls short
http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_13…
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p>Lenzi adds late drama to council race list
http://www.lowellsun.com/polit…
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p>Sun Editorial: Reject request to waive Lowell primary
http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_12…
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p>Lowell Blogs:
Aug 12 Hearing for Bill Cancelling Lowell’s Primary
http://www.leftinlowell.com/20…
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p>Council votes to eliminate primary election
http://richardhowe.com/2009/07…
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p>Note: When Councilor Elliot said ‘If there were 40 candidates, we wouldn’t even be here having this discussion, I don’t think.’ Well BMG’ers, you should know the rest of the story. Later, at a following CC meeting, Councilor Elliott made a motion to have the primary waived, no matter how many candidates were on the ballot.
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p>This is all smoke and mirrors because the residents are fed up with this bunch and they know it. They are running scared and they are stomping on the city charter, as they run.
who feel that the law doesn’t apply to them.
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p>When the same group didn’t like the way the Assistant to the City Manager responded to their requests or other government employees, they conveniently removed the exact funding for his position from the City Manager’s line item in the budget. They took this action even though the City Plan E charter expressly forbids the councilors from hiring or firing personnel that report to the City Manager, and the penalty for violation is a criminal penalty.
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p>Now, they manage to waive a preliminary election that is required by the City Plan E charter by getting other politicians to take an action that favors incumbency.
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p>Both actions are an assault on the rule of law and a slap in the face of participatory democracy.
The easiest thing would just be for the law to say, “If more than X candidates for City Council file before the deadline there SHALL be a preliminary election.” As long as a procedure is provided for obtaining a waiver (and as far as I’m can tell those who support the waiver ARE following that procedure) then this continues to be debatable and very ad hoc.
No sarcasm. The Lege continually moves to cook the books on behalf of all incumbents. It’s usually partisan, but now that Republicans have been endangered through redistricting, and there is no check or balance, well…it’s time to begin rooting out the Democrats we don’t like either.
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p>The Lege is rapidly approaching the state where they’ll eliminate those pesky voters entirely, and just announce who’ll fill various jobs.
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p>BTW – watch out for that 10 day to sign or veto thing…if memory serves, we have a ‘pocket passage’ rather than a pocket veto. If Deval takes no action in 10 days, it becomes a law by default. That way, he doesn’t have to sign, nobody has to override, there’s no accountabiltiy for anything unpopular. It just becomes law – like MAGIC!!
If the lege passes a bill and the gov is mum and the bill becomes law, we can
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p>(a) blame any legislator who voted for the bill, and
(b) blame the governor who didn’t act to prevent the bill from becoming law.
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p>Suggesting that there’s no accountability or that it’s like magic is a bit silly methinks.
Is likely to either sign or veto quickly, I think. The date is late and the city needs to know if it needs to prepare a primary. So I don’t expect anyone to sit on it for 10 days.
If the General Court remains in session a non-return constitutes enactment, but if the General Court adjourns within the ten-day window it constitutes non-enactment. Adjournment or lack thereof is also the determining factor in the Federal Constitution.
The Council voted to eliminate the prelim because they didn’t like the idea of having a citywide election just to go from 9 candidates at the prelim to 8 in the general. In principle, it wasn’t a crazy idea that you could save a half mil on an election just designed to eliminate one candidate from the final.
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p>In practice, it acted (whether intended or not) as a voter suppression tool, driving down turnout in those communities that tend to vote less frequently, and resulting in near record low turnout in the Communities of Color. In previous preliminaries, many precincts in communities of color failed to turnout, and candidates of color, Felix Arroyo (Senior) in particular, did poorly enough to cause alarm in his base precincts. The poor showing motivated voters in those precincts, and workers and volunteers as well, resulting in a much better showing in the general. Without a preliminary to scare his base, people just assumed he was safe, since he’d come in 2nd in 2005.
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p>(Qualifying those thoughts, we should also recognize that Felix ran a god-awful campaign, and his heart wasn’t really in it. But with even moderate-to-low turnout, he still manages to beat John Connolly in 07.)
Democrats opposed to democracy!
… California you have Republicans opposed to a republic.
It’s not about party. It’s about incumbency. Republicans are just as bad (Texas redistricting anyone?). It’s just that there ARE no Republicans elected in MA.
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p>Just like health care “reform” and the public “option.”
How dumb is your statement? Have we forgotten that Obama got elected on a mandate for reforming health care? Also, the polls show, if you outline the exact proposal of a public option and what it IS and ISN’T, a majority still want it. It’s only misinformation and the current lack of the shape of the reform in the legislature that is making people uneasy.
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p>You can spread lies if you want, and hijack a thread all you want, but you are still wrong.
If a GOPer wants to hijack this thread, they should run a parallel with the move to fill Teddy’s seat.
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p>An arguement could be made suggesting that Patrick’s treatment of Lowell’s waiver will be a telltale of his position on amending the law.
Am I to understand the Lowell City Council wants to eliminate the primary even if there are more candidates than general election slots? Would all those candidates then appear on the general election ballot?
would have all the candidates on the ballot. If there were a primary there would a limit of 18 candidates on the general election ballot. Without the primary there is no limit. One reason this is incumbency protection is that it dilutes any anti-incumbent sentiment by spreading it over more challengers.