Monday, April 2, 2007

Nearly half of the seats in DFW May elections are unopposed

Is it participatory democracy without participation?

By Mike Orren

While there may be a lot of mudslinging to be done in hotly contested races throughout the area in the next couple months, as far as I'm concerned, one scandal is already in full bloom:

49% of the area city council and school district board seats available in the May election are uncontested. In some jurisdictions, like Hickory Creek, Mesquite and Seagoville, entire bodies are uncontested, meaning that no election will be held. And it's not just council seats in small towns -- five Dallas and two Fort Worth City Council seats are unopposed. 22 area mayoral candidates are already a lock, including those in Mesquite, Colleyville and Grand Prairie.

This problem isn't unique to the DFW area. While I can't find anyone keeping national statistics on local elections, other major markets like Milwaukee and Seattle have seen 30-73% of local seats unopposed in recent years.

I've been poking around at the list of unopposed candidates in my limited spare time for nearly a week now, hoping to illustrate the point that there is sufficient dissent in the electorate about the honor and effectiveness of these candidates that someone should step up and run against them. But my general finding, particularly in the suburbs, is that there is a dearth of readily available information on many of these folks. And all of those folks hanging their businesses on the idea that the hordes of local news bloggers are going to populate their sites are cruising for a major disappointment.

That's why I'm glad that we've started covering neighborhoods and suburbs and hope that as we grow in terms of staff and community contributors, we can help remedy this problem. Elected officials tend to be evaluated primarily when they are covered in the news and in the course of a campaign. When neither happens, you can't necessarily assume that monkey business or bad government ensues -- nor can you assume the contrary. Aside from the whole making money and surviving as a business thing we have to deal with, it is one of our ancillary goals to increase voter turnout and candidate turnout in the areas we cover.

In Dallas, looking at five unopposed council seats just makes me more frustrated with the hordes that ran for Mayor. Zac Crain, for instance, had some interesting ideas, but didn't have the firepower to make the mayoral ballot, much less win the election. I don't know what district Zac lives in, but he could have easily made the ballot for a council seat, and might even have won the chance to make a difference. Instead of eleven mayoral candidates, couldn't we have some more contested council seats?

I'm a big believer in Tip O'Neil's admonition that "All politics is local." Sure, presidential and national politics are higher profile, but if you own property or have children, what happens at your local council or ISD impacts you far more deeply and directly.

So what are you going to do about it?

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