The people get the elected representation that they deserve

Over the last couple of months since I filed my paperwork with the County and focused on this election I've become increasingly convinced of one thing that I've heard and repeated for many years; the people do in fact get the elected representation that they deserve. By definition those representatives are chosen in a democratic electoral process, with each participating voter contributing to the final tally that determines the victor in each race, and the people who don't register or vote contribute as well, although in a negative sense because they DON'T cast a vote for a particular candidate and thereby increase that candidate's total.

The jarring disconnect in the process is that in the aftermath of any particular election people are normally dissatisfied with the outcomes in many cases, and as time goes by and those elected representatives take action and debate issues and disburse monies and pass legislation the outcry normally grows louder and louder, because the electorate feels ignored and marginalized and excluded from the processes that are supposedly being undertaken on their behalf, and with their consent.

Part of the problem is that people are simply too busy and too distracted by work and family and recreation and financial worries and health issues and a host of other concerns to pay close attention to on-going Governmental affairs, and my suspicion is that Government in many cases likes it that way, which is why elected representatives become indignant or defensive or hostile at times when they are confronted by someone whose interests they supposedly represent who requests information or documentation or access to Governmental processes that those elected officials have somehow come to believe are "theirs" and not "ours."

And even more curiously, elected officials who have ignored the wishes and voices of their constituents and voted in opposition to the expressed opinions of the people who elected them and withheld information that properly ought to be public and sought to limit public participation in local Government in a variety of ways somehow, be it through "name recognition" or targeted advertising or Democratic or Republican Party infrastructure or simple apathy on the part of the voters end up RE-ELECTED to the position that they occupied the last time around, even though there was wide-spread dissatisfaction with their performance.

A friend of mine and I were discussing this whole campaign yesterday, and he told me that he was surprised and impressed at how seriously I'd approached it, and how hard I'd worked, even though the prospects of success were uncertain, and he worried aloud that I might take it hard in the event that I ended up short of winning the election, which was quite likely.

I laughed at him when he said that, and I told him that it was only my passionate belief in participatory democracy that had goaded me into entering the race in the first place, and that my fundamental conviction is that all any candidate should do, and properly ought to do, is offer themselves to the public as servants in any given race, and let the people determine by the votes that they cast whether or not they want that person to serve their interests for whatever term the office holds, and more to the point whether or not that person is sincere about serving the public as opposed to a more selfish or private agenda.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy's famous exhortation to,

"Ask not what your Country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your Country,"

ought to be taken to heart by more politicians; in essence my entire campaign has been a variation on that question, and all that I've really done is to ask the voters of District 2 whether or not I can serve them as their Supervisor; at the end of the day it's not much different from the waiter who asks if he may take your order, and whether or not you'd like to see the wine list.

And if the electorate determines that they'd rather be waited on by someone else I wish them only the best service; ultimately the people get the elected representation that they request at the ballot box, and that's as it properly ought to be.

John-Henry

An e-mail conversation between myself and a voter.

Below is an e-mail exchange that I had over the last two days with a concerned voter from District 2; it always helps me to clarify my positions and philosophies when I can converse with someone, either face-to-face or via e-mail, and when I re-read it I realized that it pretty accurately conveys some of my ideas and beliefs, so I decided to publish it here.

The names have been removed to protect the innocent, as it were, but it's published with the permission of all persons involved.

The original e-mail was received by a third party and forwarded to me with the address stripped away, so I had to request that before we could get into the heart of the conversation, but it was a good one; I don't know if I obtained a vote or not, but I wrote what I believe, which is something that I wish more candidates would do.

John-Henry

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Hi, *******:

I'm a bit concerned about the District 2 Supervisor's race. At a recent Portal "Meet the Candidates" gathering, Matt Cook and Ann English attended; John-Henry didn't and didn't respond to invitations. I really haven't seen or heard much from him and am a bit nervous the Cook, John-Henry, and English will split the Democratic vote. Do you have any material or info on John-Henry? I hate to say it but unless I learn more soon, English may get my vote - as I'm nervous about unintended consequences.

Cheers,

&&&&&&&

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John-Henry replied:

Sir:

******* was kind enough to forward your e-mail to me (anonymously at first, but then when I asked him for your address he was kind enough to provide it so that I could write to you personally).


As I told *******, I'm not aware of any invitation that might have come my way to appear in Portal, and if one had I certainly would have responded, if only to explain that I couldn't appear for whatever that reason may have been. Unfortunately I gave a great deal of credence early on to people whose opinions I respect when it comes to County Government, and as a result I assumed that Charles Flanagan would be successful in his campaign, instead of going down in flames in the Primaries, so I ended up jumping into the race at a very late date instead of building the grassroots organization that I should have six months in advance of the Primary elections. And because things shook out that way, I've had some unavoidable prior commitments; among other things I'm a guide, and I had already scheduled several horseback trips into the Chiricahua in September and October that I couldn't cancel, so that ate into my available time as well.


That's why I tried to base my campaign on the Web, and why I relied on e-mail and word of mouth to spread the word that I was running; I didn't know how well it would work, but it was about all that time and finances permitted.

You can click the link below to visit that Website:

JohnHenry2008.com

by the way; on that Site I tried to articulate the reasons that I decided to enter the race, as well as to offer some of my philosophy of Government so that visitors could get a sense of who I am and what my candidacy is about.

At any rate, I hope that you'll visit yourself, and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have; I'm expecting some articles in the Sierra Vista Herald and the Bisbee Observer, and I'm hopeful that the Douglas Dispatch/Valley Vista will run an article as well between now and Nov. 4th, so that ought to help with visibility.

And finally I ought to mention that I have a somewhat different view of your concern that Ann, myself, and Matt will split the vote on the Democratic side, resulting in "unintended consequences." By that I (presume) that you mean that Harvey Allen will "steal" a plurality and thereby win the election, but I have to tell you that in my view that would be a better outcome than the election of Ann English. I don't have the time or the inclination for negative comments concerning any of the other candidates in the race, but I was living in Cochise County during Ann's last stint as District 2 Supervisor, and her record is available for anyone who wishes to examine it, if they don't remember it first-hand. I spoke with Harvey shortly after I filed my paperwork with the County, and I'm satisfied that in this particular case individual philosophy and personality handily trumps Party Line considerations. In simpler terms Harvey (whom I've known for more than 20 years) is very much like me when it comes to his motivation for running; he's tired of being disempowered and silenced as a resident of District 2, and he's not happy with what I call the "Sierra Vista Agenda" that's been advanced by Pat Call, and so he's stepped forward because he felt the tug of that ideal called "public service."

Harvey knows as well as anyone that a Republican doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of winning a 2-person race in District 2, and he freely admitted to me that he was probably waging a campaign in vain, but he thought that it was important to do what he could to try and offer District 2 a real voice and real representation, so he threw his hat in the ring.

I can pretty much assure you that, if elected, Harvey will be a very good Supervisor for you and I, and I believe that he'd vigorously oppose any expansionist development-oriented sub-division land-gobbling covenanted idea that might be advanced by Pat Call's backers; Harvey was born and raised here, and he represents all of the good that comes from that, as well as some of the liabilities, but he has a passionate love for Cochise County, and more particularly District 2, for the simple reason that it's his home, and he's not of a mind to surrender to what he probably would characterize as a "big-city" agenda.

At any rate I'm glad that I was able to write to you and hopefully ally some of your concerns; I'd be happy to run out your way and speak to a group of your neighbors as well as yourself if you would like to try to arrange that; as you know time is very short (15 days until election day as I write this) but Portal isn't that terribly far, and I can always run back over the top at Onion Saddle and see how the higher country is faring as a reward to myself.

Be well, and let me know if there's anything else that I can do for you, or any further questions that I can answer.


John-Henry

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&&&&&&& replied:

Hi:

Thanks for the message. I've got a couple of issues I'd appreciate your feedback on.

1. I understand your point about existing commitments and jumping into the race late, but missing last Tuesday's Meet the Candidate session in Portal was unfortunate. A lot of people in and around Portal vote early and you've missed an opportunity to connect with them. It's probably not too late to arrange to have a flier or two posted at the Post Office and/or the Library there.

2. I've become increasingly concerned about how the Board of Supervisors is handling the public. Call to the Public has been moved to the end of meetings, the Open Meeting Law may have been violated on a number of occasions, and it's been difficult to get a straight - or any - answer on many issues. I hope we can count on more accountability if you are elected to the Board.

3. In several instances, particularly building codes and zoning regulations, the County seems to have trouble recognizing that rural and urban interests are different and that one set of rules for all is frequently inappropriate. What is your opinion on this issue?

Cheers,

&&&&&&&

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John-Henry replied:

&&&&&&&:

As to the first bullet, it is unfortunate, but time and chance happeneth to them all, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, and that pales next to what happened to me yesterday; the Sierra Vista Herald and the Bisbee Observer published the same article on my campaign, and the proofreader apparently didn't know that sometimes URL's are sensitive to the "www" prefix, with the result that lots and lots of folks probably went to their computers, typed in what the paper published, and ended up looking at a Web Page full of automobile advertisements, which probably didn't do me a lot of good in most cases.

It's enough to make a man uncertain as to whether he ought to sit back and just laugh, or start punching holes in the sheetrock, but at the end of the day the old Jesuits who observed that,

"Man proposes, God disposes,"

had a point, even if sometimes it's a little difficult to be a fatalist at times.

But enough of that; as far as the Call to the Public and Open Meeting Law violations it's all too common an occurrence, even with local School Boards and Fire Boards and other piddling little Governmental entities.

And it happens simply because (pardon my construction here; it's the oilfield in me coming out) when you become King (or Queen) Shit of Turd Hill you don't have time for the commoners, because you're too busy with lofty problems and concerns that they most likely wouldn't understand in the first place.

But all kidding aside, participatory democracy is a noisy discordant disruptive cacophony from time to time, but my view is that when you step forward for consideration by the electorate to fill a representative position that's part and parcel of the responsibility that you accept; part of your job description is to entertain and facilitate and invite the people that elected you in the first place to voice their opinions, and if you shrink from that sort of a messy disorganized expressive process maybe you'd better just stay home, or work in the private sector where they can moderate meetings and interactions between employees and management any way that they please.

Paul Newman once showed up at the Elfrida Community Center for a meeting with not one but TWO off-duty Sheriff's deputies in tow; presumably he was afraid that the people who had elected him to represent their views might differ with him enough that they might be tempted to lay violent hands upon him, although that possibility looked pretty unlikely to me, and Ann English recently confided to a friend of mine that she "hates attending those meetings," which doesn't surprise me to any great extent.

I worked for Jerry Brown in the '92 election, when he contested the Democratic nomination with Bill Clinton, and Jerry was fond of exclaiming to reporters and interviewers,

"You just don't GET it!"

when he was frustrated with them, but the truth is that people like Ann English and Pat Call really DON'T get it when it comes to representative democracy; they're bureaucrats at their core, and they really believe that they do their best work when they're left the hell alone by people like you and I. I was very interested in the editorial that the Sierra Vista Herald ran yesterday, when they functionally called for the election of said bureaucrats; the position that the Editorial took is that those are valuable skills for a Supervisor, particularly when it comes to budgetary matters, but to my mind the Herald is merely upholding the status quo, which in many ways is increasingly dysfunctional and non-responsive to the electorate.

All of which is a long way 'round to saying that of course I'm in favor of Calls to the Public and Open Meeting compliance; in fact I think that "The Public," whoever he or she may be, ought to be allowed to interject his or her "public" opinion any time he or she sees fit (within the bounds of simple manners, of course) which I'm sure would make Ann English or Pat Call blench; the idea that a public entity like the Board of Supervisors could conduct a meeting where people just spoke up whenever they felt like it normally makes bureaucrats feel faint, although I've done it for years with a fair amount of success.

And finally to your third bullet; I'm personally deeply rooted on the side of the "rural" issues; I have 90 acres and a mob of dogs and horses and mules and a ramshackle adobe tied onto an old trailer, so I don't have any trouble understanding that there are folks in the County who have different ideas concerning planning and zoning than people living in gated communities in Sierra Vista, just to take one quick example. My quick-and-dirty opinion is that municipalities such as Sierra Vista have their own Governmental systems, and my view is that those systems ought to be the first option when it comes to ordinances or other restrictions or legislative changes; presumably if the population of Sierra Vista desires a particular thing to be codified Sierra Vista can pass it, implement it, and enforce it without ensnaring the rest of the County in the same net, although Sierra Vista might well prefer that the County do that instead so that the County can pay for it.

Believe me when I tell you that I profoundly believe that I'm the guy for you; I don't particularly want the job in the first place, but I'll do it for the sake of my friends and neighbors and my home. I don't need the headaches, and I don't need the ego gratification, and I'm very much afraid that a guy can work that job 100 hours a week and still feel like he's falling behind, but there are going to be large issues confronting Cochise County in the coming four years, and the electorate properly deserves a strong voice in those issues, and I'm quite willing to have that voice heard.

One of the things that makes me different from most if not all of the other candidates is that, like Lincoln, I believe in the wisdom and the practicality of the "common man," and I really believe that Government, particularly local Government, functions better when you encourage the general population to participate. It's a little bit like distributed computing, where thousands of machines are linked over the 'Net to crack very large complex mathematical problems; if you open deliberations and policy and process to the community you avail yourself of the combined knowledge and experience and skills of tens or hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people, and it just seems evident to me that you'll have a desirable outcome as a result.

Even if you do have to listen to them; maybe my whole trouble is that I like to talk, and I like to listen, but I've known for a long time that I already know everything that comes out of my own mouth, so the value is in what other people have to say, because that's where I may learn something that I didn't know before. In addition to that distributed responsibility equals distributed accountability, and not only is the likelihood of failure or mistake greatly diminished when you open up Governmental processes, but allowing voters to be responsible and accountable for Governmental action encourages more participation, and the whole cycle grows and reinforces itself until, over time, the disconnect between the electorate and their representatives shrinks and vanishes.

And at that point local Government becomes a functional organic example of participatory Democracy, and I can turn that stewardship over to someone else, saddle a horse, gather up my dogs, and go back to the mountains, knowing that I left the County in better shape than it was when I started.

John-Henry

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&&&&&&& replied:

John Henry:

Thanks for taking the time to respond; I appreciate your openness and candor!

Do you have a short campaign flier you can send as an attachment and I can send on to other interested folks? I'll pass on the SV Herald article but if you've got something else I can pass on, that might help.

Cheers,

&&&&&&&

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John-Henry replied:
&&&&&&&:

You have been to the Website, que no?

The one at:

www.johnhenry2008.com

That's kind of my campaign flier, or I had hoped that it would work in place of one; if that isn't what you're looking for, or doesn't tell you what you want to know, tell me what it is that you'd like and I'll try to take an hour or two and bang it out for you.

Or, alternately, I can write another post or posts on any subject that you'd like; just let me know what that might be and I'll try to accommodate you.

John-Henry
>
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&&&&&&& replied:


No that's fine; people can look at that and the Herald story; that should do.

Thanks.

&&&&&&&

Sierra Vista Herald/Bisbee Observer article

The Sierra Vista Herald and the Bisbee Observer both ran the same article on this campaign, and you can view it on-line by clicking the link below:

Sierra Vista Herald article on the Web

It's always nice to get some press, and I'm thankful that they elected to publish the article (even if they did just endorse Ann English, which I suppose is to be expected).

:)

How to fill out the ballot for a Write-In candidate.

Below is an image from the 2008 ballot; the voting block for District 2 Supervisor appears at the top of the ballot, squarely in the center, so it won't be hard to find. Below the three listed candidates is a blank line for voters to write in "John Henry," and a circle to blacken across from the name. And filling in/blackening the circle is important; the ballots are machine-sorted first, and they use the circle instead of the name, so don't forget that part.

The Cochise County Elections Department has been very good about working with us, and they've told us that any reasonable variant on "John Henry" will be counted, which is a good thing; there are days when not even I can spell my full name, and it's nice that voters won't have to try.

:)

John-Henry


Voting for a write-in candidate is fairly easy, although you do have to legibly print a name in addition to blackening the oval to the left of that name to indicate your preference.

A catch-all thread for users

Due to the constraints of this blogging software, readers can't begin new threads/posts, but they can "reply" here in order to ask questions or make observations or comment in any way that they'd like.

I asked my Administrator to modify the Blog so that anyone could begin a new thread/post, but he assured me that it wasn't possible within the limits of the software, so this is the next best thing that I can think of to allow you to participate.

Thanks,

John-Henry

Why did I decide to run for this seat in the first place?

How did I end up deciding to file paperwork as a write-in candidate for District 2 County Supervisor?

I've been interested in politics my entire adult life, and from time to time I've become personally involved, but like most people I'm busy, or think that I am, and it's easy to find other priorities from day to day. Also, like most people, I tend to follow National politics more closely than I do local politics (for reasons that I'll address in another post) even though there's a much better chance of directly impacting events on a County level, as well as being directly impacted by the actions of County Government.

As most residents of District 2 know, we've been poorly served over the last eight years, for several reasons, and that lack of an effective voice has functionally left almost all policy-making decisions in the hands of the Supervisors from Districts 1 and 3. I don't wish to re-hash the past eight years in any detail when it comes to the personalities of the three Supervisors and the interactions (or lack thereof) that occurred as a result, but suffice it to say that there were times when Paul Newman should have been heard by his colleagues, and times when what they heard should have been acted on; by in essence marginalizing and shunning Paul the collective voices of District 2 were silenced, and the District suffered accordingly.

Be that as it may, when Paul Newman elected not to defend his seat in the primaries that offered District 2 a fresh chance to elect a candidate who might effectively speak to and for the concerns of the people of the District, and who might advance a different agenda than the one that has colored the last eight years. My personal philosophy of Government is that if people elect to establish Government at all, as opposed to an anarchistic idea without Government, that Government ought to properly function from the bottom up, with elected officials who are attentive to the voice of the people who they represent, and responsive to that voice when it comes to setting policy direction.

The problem that I saw, and that many people in District 2 see, is that County Government has not been particularly responsive to our voices; in fact from time to time the Board of Supervisors has acted in ways that were directly opposed to the voices of the electorate, with perhaps the most dramatic example being the events surrounding the proposed development of Smith Ranch that eventually led to Proposition 400 overturning the entire proposal. I'll discuss some other particular instances in a separate post so that I don't get sidetracked, but the short form is that prior to the Primary elections it seemed that District 2 might finally get an effective representative, and a corresponding equal voice on the Board of Supervisors.

But then the Primaries were held, and after I looked carefully at the results and thought about the implications I decided to enter the race in order to provide the electorate of District 2 with an opportunity to choose another path, rather than the one that they'd been placed on without too much collective input from them.

Harvey Allen, running unopposed, garnered the Republican nomination, while Ann English defeated Charles Flanagan for the Democratic nomination. And, as most of you know, Ann thereby became the presumptive winner of the general election, and the next District 2 Supervisor, for the simple reason that voter registration in District 2 is so strongly tilted toward the Democrats that a Republican would need a virtual miracle to win.

But the thing that troubled me enough to try to do something about it was this; Ann English and Charles Flanagan roughly tied in most precincts, with the exception of the Douglas-area precincts, where the vote ended up roughly 1.5 to 1 for English over Flanagan, and that provided the winning margin. And here is the kicker; the Democratic turnout of eligible voters in Douglas that determined the winner of the Primary, and as a result almost certainly the winner of the general election if nothing unusual happened, such as another candidate entering the race, was 9%.

9%. Voter participation is always a problem, particularly in primary elections, but in this instance a vanishingly small percentage of the total population of District II cast the die and determined the identity of the next District 2 County Supervisor on the behalf of all of us, and that isn't participatory democracy as I understand it.

I've often joked that the election for County Supervisor in District 2 is really the Battle of the Yard Signs, but the fact of the matter is that name recognition plays an almost exclusive role in that election, which might not be the best way to choose someone who will be responsible for representing our interests for the next four years. Most voters don't have any clear idea of any positions that a candidate might have on any given issue, and sometimes when the winner takes office and begins to act it's a nasty surprise to the electorate who installed them.

And so I filed the necessary paperwork and put most of the rest of my life on hold for the next 50 or so days to try to give the people of District 2 something to vote for instead of a yard sign; in another post I'll discuss some of the upcoming issues and questions that will face the Board of Supervisors in the next four years, but suffice it to say that the decisions that are made are going to impact us in a real fashion, and it's in our collective interest to elect a Supervisor who will accurately and forcefully communicate our viewpoints, and who won't abandon those viewpoints in favor of a different philosophy of Government that doesn't fit the District or the people who live in it.

As the Russians (who are familiar with the consequences of not being politically involved) say:

"If you're not AT the table, you're ON the table."

John-Henry

What kind of Supervisor are the people of District 2 really looking for?

Candidates for public office commonly hold their leadership skills up as an important qualification, but I think people in District 2 don't want "leadership" from their Supervisor, they want "stewardship," which is a very different thing.

They want a Supervisor to make sure roads are well maintained, but not to unilaterally decide to build another road. They want a Supervisor to handle the County budget, but not to arbitrarily allocate funding for an entirely new program. They want a Supervisor to solicit their opinions on any important issue, then act the way the voters want him to act.

A Steward holds a position in trust, and the people of District 2 want a Supervisor they can trust not to forget them and act as if he's an autonomous authority; a Supervisor who will keep represent their opinions as fully as possible; a Supervisor who will be be their ally against over-zealous county employees in Planning & Zoning, the County Assessor's Office, the Sheriff's Office, or any County entity that gets puffed up.

Most people are busy trying to work, raise their families, and make ends meet, and they don't have time to follow day-to-day County business, but that doesn't mean a Supervisor should ignore their needs and wants. The Board should give voters every opportunity to be involved in the processes that lead to change.

In short, the people of District 2 have a philosophy that says,

"If it ain't broke, don't bother to try and fix it,"

and their Supervisor ought to keep that firmly in mind any time he's involved in their business.