The oddities of politics (well, at least a couple)

I’m still coming back off the Thanksgiving holiday which featured a goodly amount of food (including some good bread pudding thanks to Kim’s family and great pumpkin pie at Jim and Michele’s) and the news is still on the slow side – when the President getting busted on the lip by a wayward elbow in a pickup basketball game is breaking news you know things are slow.

Anyway, there are a few oddities I wanted to point out. One is a bit stale and the others arcane, but all seem crazy on the surface.

Up Baltimore County way, their Republican Central Committee chair is in a bit of hot water because he wanted the two Republicans on Baltimore County Council (along with his committee) to support a Democrat as the Council leader.

Unlike the other 23 jurisdictions in Maryland, Baltimore County elects its Republican Central Committee chair directly at the primary – it’s state law. Not only that, it’s unique to the GOP in Baltimore County as the rank-and-file Democrats don’t elect their chair – so what gives?

Even Tony Campbell himself doesn’t agree with the concept. So why is it in place? I have no idea when or why this was put into effect, but given his recent struggles I hope Campbell follows through with his promise and the General Assembly takes care of this oddity.

But wait, there’s more!

When we met on Election Day night, we selected our new county chair among the nine of us. Strangely enough, though, we didn’t officially take office until November 16, two weeks after the election. Yet the MDGOP had to do some business prior to this date and our chair (elected among us on November 2nd) represented the county at this meeting.  What’s really funny is that last term (which was my first) we weren’t sworn into office until the convention, two months after we were elected in the primary! Insofar as I know, this only applies to Republicans too.

In our case, there wasn’t much of a change since our chair is the former vice-chair and had attended state meetings before in place of the former chair when he was away. But what of a county with a lot of turnover? This could be really confusing and the potential is there for inadvertently tripping over the letter of the law.

I believe the time has come to clean up and synchronize election laws that need some pruning. Certainly let’s change the Baltimore County law, but why not set the Central Committee terms to begin on a date certain for both parties? If two weeks after the election is the day, then we should set our organizational meetings accordingly. (It may be a MDGOP slipup in this case.)

The other change from 2006 to 2010 that I would dearly love to see reversed is the elimination of the non-continuing account.

When I ran in 2006, I was able to close my financial books on the campaign once the results became official. Obviously at 5 bucks a month I didn’t want to keep the bank account going – especially for an unpaid volunteer position as mine is – and there were only a few transactions to account for on the financial report. All told there was less than $200 involved, mostly from my own contributions. (I also had to count monoblogue as an in-kind contribution.)

This time, my only two expenditures were the $10 filing fee and this website. I promised my new treasurer I’d make it as easy as possible for her! Problem is, I now don’t have the option of a non-continuing account since I’m done for four years and don’t see a need for a campaign warchest!

Compare this to my days in Ohio politics where being elected to the Central Committee positions required no filing fee, there was no need for a treasurer or associated bank account, and the only requirement to get on the ballot was a petition signed by 5-15 registered party members in the precinct. Yes, there was a difference in scale between a precinct of a few square blocks and running countywide, but the idea should be to encourage involvement, not make it more difficult. I beat enough of a field of 13 to make it this time so bring them on!

I can understand the need for these laws for state and local elected officials who are paid for services, but for an unpaid party position? I say bring back the non-continuing account for those positions only.

Obviously others may have their ideas for election and campaign finance reform, but there are a start. It’s worthy to think about this now when there’s just 44 days before the ’90 Days of Terror’ begins.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

3 thoughts on “The oddities of politics (well, at least a couple)”

  1. A little help here!

    The Baltimore County Republican Central Committee Chairman selection is unique in the United States. I came about roughly twenty years ago when a Chairman in charge of a herd of cats convinced the Baltimore County Republican legislators to eliminate the headaches and permit the Chairman to get work done. Work was raising money and recruiting candidates. I suspect that if the Central Committee passed a resolution to repeal that section of law, the Republican legislators could get a bill passed.

    As for the campaign finance accounts, you can close them at any time you please. If you please. The fees baffle me a bit. Since accounts are required, you should be able to talk to a bank manager to get a no-fee account.

    These accounts become great places to tuck away a few bucks for fundraisers, to put the proceeds of contributions to your block and precinct captain annual barbecue, and to collect funds as soon as you decide to run for Governor.

    If you put a donation button on that web site, it makes it easy for people to support your extraordinary leadership.

    No charge for the advice! ;})

  2. Bruce,

    This time I did get a no-fee account at a different bank, but still – if I’m going to do these things I’d prefer to do them as a private citizen and allow my account to go away. I seriously don’t think I’m going to make a dent in my $4k/10k personal campaign donation limits anytime soon and keeping things under $1k makes my treasurer’s life simpler (and by extension mine, since she’s also my significant other!)

    And if people want to support my ‘extraordinary leadership’, well, my site does accept advertisng and rates are reasonable!

    Michael

  3. As was already mentioned, most banks offer a no fee account. If you don’t want to keep it open, donate any remaining money to your central committee, close the account, and mark your campaign finance report final.

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