The 2013 Mayoral election was characterized by two things. It was the first
time we had an election that used ranked choice in a heavily contested election
and we had an extraordinary large number of candidates. While there was nearly
a consensus, (With the possible exception of Professor Lawrence Jacobs and
Joanne Miller, See: Ranked-choice voting: By the data still flawed, February
12, 2014 Star Tribune), that ranked choice voting worked pretty well, the
mainstream media, as well as Jacobs and Miller, made much ado about the number
of candidates running and how it must have confused the electorate who,
according to them, would not be able to study up on all of them and therefor
would not know who they should vote for. Or maybe they would be so bewildered
by the process of ranked choice voting and or the extraordinary number of
candidates that they would stay home and choose not to vote to avoid the
confusion or the work necessary to learn about the candidates.
As one of the extraordinary large number of candidates, thirty five to be
exact, I feel it is my obligation to come up with a solution that will satisfy
those that are concerned. I want to do this mostly to avoid the two main
remedies that that have been put forward to date. The first remedy offered is
to raise the filing fee from twenty dollars to something that presumably the
ârife raffâ candidates will presumably not be able to afford. The Charter
Commission has suggested $250 would do the job.
The other solution the Charter Commission recommend is to require candidates to
collect signatures instead of paying a fee to qualify. If one stops to think
about it though, practically speaking, this would hardly be better than the
requirement to put up a specific dollar amount. The problem is that those that
can put up money can also easily afford to pay others to get signatures. Also
those that had name recognition because of advertising, or because they had
previously held office would be more likely to get larger numbers of signatures
and to recruit others to get signatures for them.
As a candidate for Mayor and as a participant in the Occupy movement I have
advocated for getting money out of politics. I think that allowing unlimited
amounts of money from corporations and wealthy individuals, often without full
disclosure as to who it is from, to be used to buy elections and to buy
candidates once they are elected is one of the main problems facing our
âdemocracyâ. Â This problem would only be made worse by requiring large filing
fees to run for office. Large filing fees are in fact tantamount to the poll
tax used in the Jim Crow South to keep blacks from voting, only here the
attempt is to eliminate a class of people from full participation in the
democratic process. The public financing option which allows for a rebate for
small donations, ($50 for a single person and $100 per couple),  which is
available in Minnesota for state wide elections is a partial solution but more
has to be done especially in the local elections, where this option is not
available, to ensure a true democracy.
We could, for example, weed out âfrivolousâ candidates in a way that would not
make money the arbitrator of who can run and who canât and unlike a high filing
fee it would not be based on class or race, (people of color are more likely to
be in the lower socio economic classes). One solution is to require those
wishing to run for office to perform some kind of service for their
constituents. This could be something like community service that people who
are convicted of petty criminal offenses are required to perform instead of
doing jail time or paying a fine. This would give the candidates a chance to
demonstrate their commitment to their constituents. It would also give them
the opportunity to learn about a portion of their constituency that perhaps
they never knew much if anything about because of the way and where they were
raised and how and where they now live. They could volunteer in hospitals,
nursing homes, homeless shelters, prisons or, mental health facilities. At the
end of their service those that they were working with could grade the
candidates as to how qualified they think the candidate is to represent their
interests if elected. Not only would the candidates be providing a service,
which they would not be doing by collecting signatures, they would be able to
demonstrate their commitment, and learn about the issues facing their
constituents. It would give the constituents a chance to know something about
the candidates too.
Another way to qualify candidates would be to have each candidate go before a
body similar to to a Jury in a court hearing. There they would have to explain
their platform and reason for running for office and be subjected to questions
from the âjurorsâ. They would then have to satisfy the majority of the
âjurorsâ that they were sincere candidates with a serious platform. Those that
passed that test then would then be allowed on the ballet. In addition to that
perhaps we could make them eligible to be in the debates and maybe make them
eligible for pubic funding of their campaign, as is allowed in Minnesota State
elections for Constitutional office holders.
With these methods, or perhaps a combination of these methods, the constituents
would also be in a better position to eliminate from consideration some of the
well off riff raft whom the constituents may then recognize as little more than
carpet baggers intent in enriching themselves and their financiers at the
constituents expense. It would provide some equity between the haves and have
nots as well, which is lacking in the proposal to raise the filing fee. Equity
is also laking in the two tiered proposal, requiring those that canât afford
the filing fee to collect signatures. Like the poll tax both of these methods
would discriminate against the poor.
Captain Jack Sparrow
Note: A shorter version of this was published as a letter of the day in the
Minneapolis Star Tribune on March 3, 2014.
Read comments on this from Charter Commission member Dan Cohen and my responses
to him at occupirate.blogsot.com," How to get the riff raff out of electoral
politics". While you are there check out my platform for my mayoral campaign
to decide if I you think I was a "serious" or "frivolous" candidate.