Our elders talk about the Ward Chairmen back in the day such as Doc Fielder, Bubby Hairston, Zach Winston, and later Bea Mahaffey. How they welded power, and forced the White folks Downtown to listen and take notes when they spoke. How they took care of their communities. Well that was the past because in today’s politics who knows who their Ward Chair is let alone who their committeeman or committeewoman is.
With major elections coming up for the mayor, city council and the school board, you would think the Ward Chairmen would be out making sure the people who voted them into office are fairly represented. But that has not been the case the past few years.
For example, in the Hill District and lower North Side Daniel Lavelle won the last election by a landslide so you would think he would be a shoe in for the endorsement by the Party committee people for this election since he’s running against the same opponent he slaughtered. Well he lost the endorsement for the second time to the same woman he soundly beat in the previous election, Tonya Payne. What made the win so impressive is that she was the sitting Councilwoman at the time.
Now he has to go out and spend his own money to get petitions to run, which the Party will challenge to try to force him off the ticket, which would mean the person who the people voted into office, could possibly be taken off the ballot, thus not giving the people a real choice.
When she was the sitting city councilwoman the Party should have endorsed her. But they not only endorsed her after she was defeated soundly by Lavelle, but in between, they endorsed her run against a sitting state representative, Jake Wheatley. Once again the people let it be known that they didn’t want Tonya Payne as their state rep, or as their city councilwoman. Yet in the most recent endorsement once again the Democratic Party, through its committee system voted 45 to 37 for Payne over Lavelle.
This makes a very clear statement to me and the general voting public throughout the city and especially in the Hill District, Downtown, and the lower North Side, that the Democratic Party doesn’t give a damn about the voters in these areas. What the people want is not important. They have spoken twice loud and clear yet the Democratic Party keeps endorsing Payne. Something desperately needs to be done to change this system.
It should make us all ask. Who are the Ward Chairs throughout the city? Who are the committee people? What are their responsibilities? Should this system be totally eliminated and replaced with a simple election in which the people chose who they want to represent them?
There are several communities and neighborhoods that don’t have elected committee people, because most people don’t run for these seats any more, and far too many others have self-serving people in these slots who only care about themselves.
My understanding is that it cost $5,000 to seek the endorsement. The reason many candidates are no longer seeking the endorsement is that after giving that money, if you lose the endorsement, you lose the money you gave, plus now you have to come out of your pockets to finance your campaign against the better funded Party endorsed candidate. Plus, recently more and more unendorsed candidates are winning, mostly because of the flawed committee system, which doesn’t take into account what the people want. This should be sending a loud message to the Party.
Running a campaign at any level is becoming more and more expensive, in many cases the person with the deepest pockets wins instead of the best candidate, which is leading to fewer and fewer people coming to the polls because they see what’s going on.
That is the case of Lavelle vs. Payne. He now has to dig into his pockets and ask people for money, while she gets a free ride despite being told clearly by the people in the past two elections that we don’t want her to represent us.
The Ward Chairs are no longer putting the interest of the people ahead of their own. Not only are the few committee people out there not concerned about their community and the general public but fewer and fewer people are choosing to run for these slots because they either see no benefit to them, or they see the corruption and greed in these positions and choose not to be a part of it.
This is not just happening in the Black communities, it’s all over the city. It’s just more prominent in Black communities.
The system is broken, and some drastic changes need to be implemented to bring back the trust of the average voters across the city and county. This is supposed to be a democratic system where the community selects its representatives through the voting process. The day of a few handpicked people in a smoked filled room selecting them needs to end. Have an open election and let the people pick their representative. We need to eliminate Party endorsements all together or fix the committee system.
(Ulish Carter is managing editor of the New Pittsburgh Courier.)