Should Balloting Be Buyable By Those With Lots Of Bucks?
Who owns an election?
The candidates? Voters? The whole community which, after all, has to live with the results whether they all participate or not? The guy who pays the bill?
If the answer is the latter, then last month’s election on a new Seattle football stadium belongs to Microsoft’s deputy billionaire, Paul Allen. Allen, buyer of the Seahawks, who will play their National Football League games in the new facility, is paying the state of Washington and its 39 counties $4 million in reimbursement for the cost of the election.
But what if the answer to the ownership question is the whole community? Not everyone is comfortable with the Allen precedent. Some think that elections, being public exercises, should be underwritten by the public, when and if it determines to hold them.
Allen’s approach - and the Legislature’s complicity in it - means the wealthy, by freeing the public purse-keepers from worrying about expense, gain a greater chance than most of getting their issues on the ballot. That, in the long run, could be more significant than the money.
What do “Bagpipes” readers think?
What happened to respect?
Another reader has weighed in with a question for candidates in this fall’s municipal and school board elections to consider.
James A. Nelson of Spokane wants to hear from school board candidates about students’ rights.
“I want to know why so-called student rights are being allowed in many cases to actually disrupt the schools’ learning process. I speak mostly about lax dress codes and total disrespect by some students for the teachers and system in general, all in the name of student rights.”
Says Nelson: “You only have to talk to the many teachers who desperately look forward to retirement and those who leave the profession early because of students’ attitudes and their lack of respect for authority to know that something should be done in these areas.”
Nelson wants to know if the candidates “have a plan or feel it’s even possible to ever return to an educational system that not only educates but also teaches respect and responsibility for one’s actions by the students themselves.”
Candidates file for office next week. “Bagpipes” is interested in hearing from other readers about the issues that should be addressed during the campaign.
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