The King County Council decided that appointing state legislators using a quota system was better than following the recommendations of local elected representatives for selecting replacement legislators in Seattle districts this year. Yesterday, the Council selected the runner-up choice of the 37th District Democrat Precinct Committee Officers (PCO) as the replacement for ineffective (according to Democrats) State Senator Pramila Jayapal.
Shift has already reported that some media outlets are so excited by this appointment that they didn’t bother doing much fact-checking on their stories about it.
Seems credential-checking wasn’t much on the mind of the County Council either, as evidently the new appointee, Rebecca Saldaña, deserved her post not because she was the most qualified, or supported by enough grassroots activists in her district. Instead, as Bellevue elitist Claudia Balducci suggested, “it’s about this increasingly diverse county we live in. The numbers of people who come to the table and bring that experience [and] bring that point of view in our legislature is really woefully lacking.”
Councilwoman Balducci – a white woman – was put in the position of selecting a state senator for a “majority-minority” district she does not live in because one of the outcomes of nearly every election is that some politicians move up the electoral food chain, and leave behind vacant state legislative positions that must be filled by appointment. That job of filling empty seats falls first on the local grassroots activists who are elected as PCOs, and then on county council members who act on the PCO recommendations.
State law mandates that PCOs in a legislative district nominate three candidates for an open seat, and then the county council members where that district is located chose a new representative from the list.
Normally, county officials follow the wishes of the PCOs, who are the type of folks who volunteer on campaigns and doorbell on behalf of their party’s chosen ones. However, they don’t have to select the top PCO vote-getter, just one of the people on the list.
So, Balducci and her fellow King County Council members decided to play kingmaker – for all the right politically correct reasons, of course – and overruled local PCOs in the 37th Legislative District, replacing newly elected Congresswoman-for-Life Jayapal with Saldaña.
Now, Balducci might suggest that it was because the PCOs top choice – Rory O’Sullivan – was white, while Saldaña is Latina. That would fit with the quota narrative of the Council members,
However, also weighing on the Council members’ minds might have been that Saldaña is a former SEIU organizer, and as such, according to the State Labor Council’s daily propaganda sheet The Stand, “EDITOR’S NOTE — Saldaña’s appointment is/was strongly supported by organized labor.”
So, whether it’s quota politics, or labor politics, King County Council members who don’t live in the 37th District decided that the people there should be represented by someone who the grassroots activists in the district did not want.
Guess we get to wait until next year to see if Mr. O’Sullivan has support beyond the PCO numbers he won.
So, the candidate who received the second-largest number of votes gets the office? That’s completely unfair.
I’m glad to see Shift believes the candidate who receives the largest number of votes should win the office.
I suppose you’re trying to make a point… whatever it may be.
Tensor just may be unaware of the nuances of the electoral college, perhaps a victim of the “real news”
Dr. D, it’s apparent that you’ve correctly diagnosed tensie’s problem… uh, malady. The underlying illness is mental, Liberal Derangement Syndrome… another manifestation of the indoctrination taking place in our institutions of learning otherwise known as public education.
I know perfectly well how the Electoral College works; it’s Shift which seems unclear on the concept. You might want to thank Dr D for letting you know what I was getting at there, since, as usual, you hadn’t a clue.
(Does Shift complain more when the loser of the popular vote gets the office, or when the winner does? It seems Shift has little respect for our democracy, either way…)
Hey, Dopey, I didn’t say that you didn’t know how the electoral college works, however, be that as it may be, even though you know the mechanics of it you obviously don’t understand the genius of the founding fathers and the nuances of the EC just as Dr. D stated. The EC better protects the interests of minorities, in particular political minorities than a purely popular vote.
And you also don’t know that our form of government is NOT a democracy, never has been and I’m hopeful it never will be. If the republic falls it will lead to eventual anarchy. Democracy has variously been described as three wolves and a sheep voting on the dinner menu.
“…obviously don’t understand…”
This from the guy who needed an explicit third-party explanation of what I was talking about. Priceless.