LET THEM SHOW THEIR TRUE COLORS

On the Tuesday before last, Mayor Heartwell and all six of the Grand Rapids city commissioners gathered on Calder Plaza to endorse a Democratic candidate for one of the seats on the Kent County Board of Commissioners.  Unlike their recent endorsements of ballot proposals, the city solons were careful not to make their collective pronouncement from City Hall.  Thus, they skirted the city charter's prohibition on party affiliation on the basis that their endorsement was not an official act but seven separate and personal ones.

Yeah, right. ... But then what's so good about the pretense of non-partisanship?  Politicians endorse candidates all of the time.  There is nothing inherently corrupt about the practice.  In fact, I think it's good that Heartwell and the gang showed their true partisan colors to the public, even if the way they did so was shabby.  (Nothing stopped each of them from making genuinely personal endorsements in the county commissioner race instead of as a herd corralled for the news media.  In short, the collective endorsement was a stunt calculated to exploit the dignity of their public offices.)  Why not know who rides a donkey and who rides an elephant?

If nothing else, we now clearly see that we have a mayor and a city commission who are not representative of the voters in the City of Grand Rapids.  Unlike them, the voters are roughly split down the middle between the Democratic and Republican parties.  This is not to say that party affiliation is definitive as to the policies a politician will support, and a voter is foolish to vote on that basis alone.  However, party affiliation isn't meaningless either.  It does say a great deal about the general point-of-view of a politician when he publicly stands with a party (or, in the occasional case, when he refuses to do so).

In other words, party affiliation is an important piece of information about a politician, maybe the most important single fact in our two-party system.  I cannot think of any good reason why the voters should be denied this information about the men and women who hold the city's elective offices.

Comments

[Steve Smith]

It's one thing to open a brochure or read an ad in the GR Press and see a city commissioner backing a candidate for county commissioner, or vice versa. But to have them all, AS A GROUP, stage a media event as they did, with the Calder and City Hall in the background- Naaaaah, sumpin' ain't right there. Plus it really raises the tension level in city- county relations.

[The Executive Director]

Hi, Steve.

I agree that the way Heartwell and the gang did it stinks. They were clearly skirting the city charter. Even though I am dubious of the merits of the city charter's prohibition on partisan affiliation, it is still the law in the city -- and our elected officials should respect both the letter and the spirit of it.

As for driving needless wedges between the city and county, you get to see the results firsthand, so I don't doubt the problem you say that the City Commission's endorsement stunt is causing. Heartwell and the gang may be politicians, but they aren't very politic.

Regards, Bill