Posts Tagged → Papenfuse
My Day in Court…is Your Day in Court
This morning I joined mayoral candidate Nevin Mindlin and a contingent of other supporters and watchers in Dauphin County court. Judge Bernie Coates presided.
At issue was the contention that Mindlin had failed to name a three-person committee to replace him, in case he dies or is incapacitated before the election, and thus is now disqualified from running for office in the first place. Attorney Ron Katzman presented the charge on behalf of a nameless voter who must be very proud indeed to serve as a political stooge seeking to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters.
Katzman made the argument that all rules that possibly could be followed must be followed, even if they are counter-intuitive and determined to not apply by the official elections staff. It sounded to me like Katzman was arguing that potential candidates for office really need to pay an attorney to carefully scrutinize the rules, so the already-onerous requirements are met. Mindlin said as much from the witness stand.
Attorney Herschel Lock represented Mindlin and made the argument that the law is vague, Mindlin followed all the clear requirements, he followed the advice of election officials, the rules and past legal holdings allow for his candidate papers to be amended, if needed, and Lock concluded by asking what sort of a voting system do Americans want: One that needs lawyers, or one that simply needs a few papers filled out?
My takeaway from the two-hour proceeding is that Pennsylvania’s election rules and forms are ridiculously onerous, and that the majority of these rules and forms serve no purpose other than to make it easier to disqualify someone for not dotting an i or crossing a t. As though dotting an i or crossing a t is what running for office is about…
Is it in the public’s interests to make it difficult to run for office? My answer, and I suspect yours, is that No, it should not be difficult to run for office. If you are crazy enough to put your name out in the public domain, and to subject yourself, your family, and your business to that kind of destructive scrutiny, then it should be easy. After all, finding candidates for office is at the core of our representative democracy. Procedurally, it should be easy to run, not hard.
Mindlin had his day in court, and I hope that he prevails, because his day is my day and it is your day, too. Freedom for Mindlin means freedom for all citizens.
It makes sense that he will win. But who ever said that politics makes sense? After all, Mindlin’s candidacy is being challenged on the flimsiest of grounds because his opponent, Eric Papenfuse, cannot stand up to him on substantive issues of ideas, trust, and job qualifications. Because of the apparent RICO violations involved with all of the Harrisburg City bond shenanigans, a strong mayor like Mindlin is a potential threat to the bipartisan parasite that feasted away on the taxpayers here. If Mindlin becomes mayor, people might actually go to jail. And because people might go to jail, and thereby expose even more alleged law breakers, who knows what kind of backroom political pressures are being exerted at the judicial level.
It is my hope that Judge Coates does what a good judge is supposed to do and what other Pennsylvania judges have been doing in recent years: Let the man run for office.
Harrisburg City mayoral race free-for-all shows weakness of rules-happy system
Watching all of the petty legal shenanigans unfold in our mayoral race reinforces the lesson that lots of rules works against democracy, and works in favor of rule makers.
Here’s a city in need of an independent minded leader, and both main political parties gang up to protect and promote the one guy, Eric Papenfuse, who is most likely to sell out the city taxpayers.
If you like democracy, and you want ordinary citizens to be part of the political process, then eliminate these arcane and unnecessary rules. They are barriers to legitimate political participation.
In our case, these silly rules are going to help protect the guilty (the bondsmen who issued faulty bonds that bankrupted Harrisburg) in both main political parties. And that tells us all we need to know.
What a week
This week started out wacky, with Oprah Winfrey claiming the death of would-be murderer Trayvon Martin was the same as the torture-murder of 14-year-old Emmit Till decades ago in the segregated South. Winfrey then went on to claim she faces all kinds of oppression and racism, not because people disagree with her odd personal views and decreasing credibility, but because she is black. There is no evidence to support her claim.
In the alternative, there is all sorts of evidence to support the claim that young black men are torturing and killing one another at record numbers across the nation. Not that it would be an issue, because the false notion that America remains a racist place must be kept alive, no matter how silly it appears. How sad for the young black men whose lives are disintegrating in front of the nation, that they have been abandoned by both blacks and white liberals. Perhaps they are mere cannon fodder in the larger culture war against traditional American values like responsibility, self-restraint, self-reliance, etc. On the left, it has always been the attitude that a few eggs must be broken to make the Saul Alinsky omelette…
But the fact is that this week is marked most by the wacky politics here in Harrisburg City. The nation’s first, best-known, and most broke city, if you break it down per capita.
To wit: Controller Dan Miller, a Democrat, won the Republican write-in vote in May, losing the Democratic race to arch-left-kook Eric Papenfuse, while former Republican candidate Nevin Mindlin won the Independent spot on the ballot.
Or did they?
Out of the blue came a young Mr. Nate Curtis, seeking the Independent spot, months after the issue was settled in the primary election. Republican establishment staffers were behind his candidacy.
Miller announced Monday he was not running on the Republican ticket, only to announce today that he was. Well-funded bipartisan teams from the establishment wings of both parties have descended on Curtis, Miller, and Mindlin to challenge every aspect of their candidacies, seeking to knock them out and leave the Eric Papenfuse race for mayor uncontested.
No matter how arcane the arguments, these attacks on Harrisburg’s chance to finally elect a qualified, competent, independent-minded mayor highlight something we have heard before about Pennsylvania election rules and laws: They suck.
Green Party candidates like Ralph Nader have complained that Pennsylvania’s election rules and laws are obviously skewed in favor of the two main parties, and are designed to create a labyrinthine environment in which only the most carefully constructed candidacies can survive. And of course, the only people who can carefully construct such a campaign are members of the two private, taxpayer-funded
political parties, the Democrats and Republicans, the folks who wrote and interpret the election rules and laws.
Curtis is truly vulnerable, because he has not resided in Harrisburg for the past year. Residency requirements are pretty straight forward, and there’s nothing wrong with demanding that you live among the people you seek to represent for at least one year.
Mindlin is not a member of any political party, so he believes he is immune from the charge that his campaign lacks the otherwise – required campaign committee sitting in the wings, waiting to select someone else if Mindlin fails to actually run for the office he and he alone is running for. Say what? See? Very silly, arcane stuff, not at all in the interests of expanded democracy or representative government. It is designed to trip up, disqualify, and eliminate candidates who lack huge infrastructure behind them.
Miller wants Papenfuse to lose, and he has plenty of supporters who feel the same way, so he will fight to stay on the ballot.
It may well be a three-way race between Mindlin, Miller, and Papenfuse. Or, it could be litigated and determined that only Miller and Papenfuse have standing to run.
In the end, Pennsylvanians remain badly served by arcane laws designed to keep them out of the way and on the sidelines, eating the thin gruel served up by an entrenched two-party apparatus and their respective special interests. And I dream of Mindlin or Miller winning this November…
Election Day is Nigh
Election Day is Nigh
By Josh First
Three political races are of consequence where I live: Mayor of Harrisburg, Dauphin County Judge (Court of Common Pleas), and Susquehanna Township school board.
Like all elections, this one is important, and unlike all elections, this one is also uniquely of little consequence. Here’s why:
The mayor of Harrisburg has been reduced to an almost figurehead role, because the state is running the city. Yes, the mayor’s desk is a bully pulpit, if you want it to be. But don’t count on many people listening, because the city is broke, broke, broke, and a long time will pass before its citizens feel like things are going right. Harrisburg’s school district is largely out of reach of the mayor’s office, and it requires open heart surgery to bring it back to life before it taxes everyone to death.
Bottom line: No matter who is mayor, it isn’t going to matter a lot right now.
Several candidates are vying for the Democrat nomination. Reportedly, Louis Butts has just been caught defacing Eric Papenfuse’s signs. Personally, I like Louis a lot. But, scratch that candidate, right?
Eric Papenfuse is possibly an intellectual, but he is smitten with terrorist Bill Ayers, and so probably a lightweight. Going against Papenfuse is an op-ed he wrote a couple years ago, lamenting that the poor black kids of Harrisburg might actually get a useful education (vocation) at SciTech, instead of the hard-far-Left issues indoctrination that street organizers prefer their soldiers to march to. Papenfuse is a wannabe plantation owner. Good luck with that one, Harrisburg!
Then there is candidate Dan Miller, a smart guy, a hard working guy, who has tried to hold the line on irresponsible spending. Dan has taken to showboating once in a while, which elected officials can do, but he has also demonstrated careful thinking, and an autocratic streak a mile wide to go with it. Some developers have been rubbed the wrong way by Dan’s style. The Harrisburg Stonewall Brigade have been rubbed the right way. Stallions may become the next de facto Mayor’s office. The owner of Stallions, Mickey Shefet, is one of Harrisburg’s best, hardest working, and most dedicated businessmen, and he deserves a break for having invested in the city for so many years. Go Dan!
Finally, Mayor Linda Thompson is an outspoken woman of faith, an attribute sorely lacking in these modern days. I have worked with Linda on the Tree issue, and she is much smarter than people know. She is also carelessly outspoken on many other issues, some of which matter to city taxpayers. Her “scumbag from Perry County” line shall be etched in Central Pennsylvania infamy for generations, and has already spawned a cellar bootleg T-shirt industry among the proud denizens of that beautiful county. Like those who wear the “Infidel” T-shirt in Arabic across their chests, many Perry Countians are proud to wear Linda Thompson’s most famous line, in camouflage, of course.
Waiting to take on the Democrat nominee is Independent Nevin Mindlin, a long-time professional with fantastic government credentials and a kindly, nerdy disposition that I find magnetic. Mindlin is my choice to run the cit-tay.
The second race is for judge. Democrat Anne Gingrich Cornick appears to many political observers to be a magical creation of Judge Scott Evans, a Republican whose behind-the-scenes power is legendary. Cornick cross-filed as a Republican, reportedly also at the urging of Evans, whose claim to President Judge once more has not necessarily been completely bolstered by the candidacy of two other Republicans, Bill Tully and Fran Chardo.
Both Tully and Chardo are stand-up guys (I have written about their race previously), and I would like to see Chardo gain a few years before he sits in judgment of anyone like me. Tully has the seniority, seasoning, broader experience, and disposition necessary for a good judge. Chardo has the political establishment contacts, so this otherwise-boring judge race may actually be pretty exciting. But the outcome is that the county will get a good judge, no matter which Republican wins.
Finally, Susquehanna Township’s school board is being rocked by racial politics that no one wants to talk about and which threaten to turn Harrisburg’s famously stable, integrated suburbs into a bitter political war zone.
Leading the charge is Coach Jesse Rawls. Rawls was one of the first black wrestling coaches in America, and for that he has my undying admiration. But his emphasis on stocking the school district with skin color and not necessarily with talent is psychotically destructive and, well, it’s racist. Coach, I admire you greatly, and you have also disappointed me terribly, because of all people a wrestling coach knows the value and importance of individual merit and accomplishment. Especially a black wrestling coach in Central Pennsylvania.
Skin color never won a wrestling match, but emphasis on excluding skin color has cost America plenty, so my choice in that election are Bruce Warshawsky and Robert Marcus. Both Bruce and Bob are emphasizing a color-free focus on academic excellence. What other criterion do taxpayers want in teaching? Excellence in all things should be the only thing anyone cares about, talks about, or votes about. Sadly, even if Bruce and Bob win, they will likely be outnumbered by other school board members who see life through skin-tinted lenses, thus limiting their influence on district hiring criteria.
And so, as they say in Chicago, dear friends, vote early and vote often!