The day after the Harford County Council appointed three Republicans to the newly-formed redistricting commission, many are still questioning why local Democrats rejected an offer from Council President Billy Boniface that would have allowed a Democrat to be named to the group, in exchange for Democrats backing down from threats of a lawsuit.
After turning down the deal, Democrats watched as the county council appointed Republicans Chris Pate, Jason Gallion, and Ben Lloyd to the commission. Democratic council members Dion Guthrie and Mary Ann Lisanti had nominated Democrats Cathy Riley and Joe Tydings for appointment to the commission.
On Wednesday morning, Wendy Sawyer, chair of the Harford County Democratic Central Committee, explained to The Dagger why the offer was rejected:
The “offer” everyone is making so much fuss about was not a genuine offer made in good faith It was a ploy Billy used last night for his own partisan purposes. Billy Boniface did not have authority to make such an offer, particularly in light of the fact that he kept it from all council members, as well as the fact that the Democratic Central Committee had been involved in numerous correspondences with the Council Administrator, Barbara O’Connor and Charles Kearney, their attorney for two months. The council members first learned of these interactions at last week’s meeting when I spoke to the council about it. That correspondence is attached for your review. IT should give you a good chronological order of events.
I would think the members of the council should have been made aware of Billy’s backroom dealings. The Central Committee chose not to participate in a way we felt was unethical. We are not sorry we didn’t.
I received a call from Dion Guthrie, conveying that Billy wanted to know if the Council appointed a Democrat to the third spot, would the Central Committee provide a letter to the Council guaranteeing we would not seek legal action against the Council. Where did he get the authority to make such an offer, particularly when other council members were unaware? If we had accepted the offer, yes, we would have “a” democrat on the commission.
No promise was made to choose from our list, simply “a democrat”. The deal was dirty and the offer was not going to solve the problem of the Charter being out of date.
This story is about more than fielding candidates. It’s not even about politics, although that is surely how it will play out now. It’s about making sure our county government keeps its Charter in line with reality.
It’s an issue the citizens of this county need to know and should care about. Last night’s council meeting was an abomination as an example of democracy in action. Mr. Slutzky’s comments were out of line and clearly an example of the arrogance with which this council has been operating. He should be called out for his behavior.
The real point here is that when elections changed from at large to in district, it was the County Council’s responsibility to make sure that the Charter was in line with the new type of elections. Three election cycles have gone by since then and this is the first time redistricting has been an issue. The Charter calls for a Charter Review Board, and I fairly certain no such board exists. In fact, Mary Ann Lisanti mentioned at last night’s meeting her desire to put one into place.
Our position is that the words in the Charter may have been constitutional when written, but when applied to the new voting structure the math gets skewed and the Charter provision are unconstitutional. The number of possible votes for council members decreased by almost 80% by going to in district elections. I realize it is a complicated legal argument, and unfortunately for us not one many readers will take the time to understand.
Judges interpret laws, not the public or the newspapers or anyone else. We know what the words on the paper say. But anyone who understands the law even a little bit knows that when looking at a legislative document it is the “intent” that prevails. The intent will be proven at trial – to keep fringe parties from participating. Democrats are not a fringe party in Harford County. The point is that the Charter no longer fits the elections.
We will be asking the Court to review it and make a decision.
Earth to Wendy… Earth to Wendy… if you don’t like the rule or don’t think it is fair since the elections are now staged differently, try to have the rule changed FOR FUTURE redistricting, rather than asking the County Council to violate the charter.
Next, I would like you to state for the Dagger readers whether or not that if the circumstances were reversed, you would be pushing for the rewriting of the rule to prevent a board completely made up of Democrats.
Of course you would! How dare I question your ethics! This isn’t simply partisan politics, it’s all about fairness, justice, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, etc.
(Note to Wendy – nobody likes a sore loser.)
OR a sore winner. Get over yourself.
Who’s sore? Not this guy!
Birthers would do well to take Phil’s advice.
With all due respect to Ms Sawer, someone needs to state the obvious, she blew it. A rule was in place, placed their by her party when they were in charge, and she and the members of her organization simply missed it.
I can not help but think that so much of what is happening now is driven by her effort to remove the egg from her face.
Ms. Sawer there are laws for a reason, and when you do not like them you still have to follow them. If you can muster the votes to replace the people in charge now, you then will have the chance to fix what you believe is a wrong, but I can not help but doubt that if the roles were reversed you would feel different.
Now save the tax payers the money of having to defend a lawsuit designed to protect your dignity. Time to be a grown up, get back to work and see what your group can do to win election instead of throwing a fit cause you did not get your way.
Good Day All.
Well said.
Brian King~ Before you lecture someone, you might want to make sure you spell their surname correctly, especially when it’s written in the headline of the article upon which you are commenting.
~TOM
I agree, Tom, that the only thing that can be argued in Brian’s post is his spelling. Great job pointing that out!
The funniest part is, none of this matters. Just like with State redistricting, the only thing that matters is what the council or legislature says. The Commission can work for months and produce a fair map, and the County Council can pass something entirely different. The Commission’s exercise is people on the outside to feel worthwhile. Central Committee’s really only have 1 job, nominate a replacement for a vacancy. Everything else is just window dressing.
The rules are the rules. The Republicans did not need to offer one seat on the commission but they were generous enough to do so. The offer should have been accepted. Even if the Democrats got two seats, they would still have less votes on the commission than the Republicans and would be outvoted on anything that did not favor the Democrats. I don’t understand what the tempest in a teapot is all about. The Democrats did a lousy job of recruiting candidates for the offices in the last election, it has nothing to do with whether county council elections are countywide or district-wide.
While we’re on the subject, I take issue with my good friend Wendy Sawyer as to the participation of third party candidates: they should be included too in the re-districting process. Now maybe Democrats will understand what it is like for third party members to be shut out of the process. But I don’t think they will learn this lesson, even though they should. Wendy’s comments on third parties are evidence that the two-party system is rigged to shut out other parties, and that is not right.
There is an old saying, when you point a finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at you. Democrats need to have the courage to reform themselves and reshape their party. Or maybe they can go the way of the Whigs.
If anyone wants to know my plan to revamp the Democrats, just ask.
Do you include yourself on the list of candidates who were lousy? I certainly do.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but it would have more weight if you explained your views rather than expressing a simple insult. What was lousy is that the Democratic Central Committee did not recruit candidates for offices that had no candidates. Arguably that is their job and they didn’t do it. When the Republicans recruited me to run for county council in 1986 for District A (but it was actually countywide), they attempted to run candidates for all of the offices that could be contested. They also focused on voter registration. The Democrats stuck to their old timeworn and obsolete habits, and they still have not changed them. That is why they lost the election and that is why they couldn’t even muster enough to get appointed to the redistricting commission. There are plenty of critics of the Democrats who are Democrats, but they don’t run the show in Harford County Democratic politics. They should be running it.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Let’s see. I ran as a challenger to the Democratic incumbent Congressman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger. I have been trying to get Dutch to change his votes on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since he was elected to Congress in 2002. But Dutch is a stubborn man. He actually thinks it’s better to spend $1 million per year per soldier to go to Afghanistan. I believe the Congress just sent another $100 billion down that rathole. Speaker Boehner and Ex-speaker Pelosi and others are blind to the profligate waste of the last two wars. Peacemaking is much cheaper! Secretary Gates (who should be fired and never should have been appointed by Obama in the first place) is another stubborn dinosaur who is incapable of learning.
Now don’t the troops in Afghanistan seem awfully irrelevant now? Just what are they accomplishing? With Egypt and much of the rest of the Middle East in turmoil, agitating for DEMOCRACY! it seems awfully strange we are trying to teach the 12th Century Afghanis about American democracy. We can’t hardly even manage it in Harford County. So I was glad to oppose the wasteful spending on wars abroad. If Congress ever wakes up, they will find a great source of savings on the federal budget: THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT!
Now don’t the troops in Afghanistan seem awfully irrelevant now? The troops in Afghanistan have been irrelevant since 2005/2006 when Rumsfeld and company chose to forget about them because the war wasn’t going well. The defense department work force is to large as is their budget. I support projects with a focus on cyber security and intelligence. We need to close some of our military bases, stop building Submarines, Aircraft carriers, Fighter jets, Tracked vehicles.
Subject at hand…The Dems simply screwed up by not running candidates back in the fall. The County Charter should not be violated but changed to reflect district voting. The Dems should have accepted the deal and seated one person on the commission. In my humble opinion.
Amen, and thank you.