When issues regarding
politics are discussed my views are not always in lock step with others in my
party, Republican.
For the record, I am rarely in agreement with views
of the Democrat Party. Philosophically, we are separated by a universe.
I wrote my previous blogs more to vent
my feelings than to change minds. However, I do hope to get some people who
read them to think about why they believe as they do.
Today, however, I am positive my view
is 100% correct and those from my party who don’t agree are 100% wrong. In
fact, I believe they do not really understand what being an American is all
about or what the Republican Party stands for. Strong words, I know.
The issue at question has to do with
filing fees for potential candidates for public office.
Requiring someone to post a certain
amount of money just to file for office is a mostly southern tradition. The
origins date to the days of Jim Crow and the era of the poll tax. The intent of
filing fees was purely to exclude possible candidates the local powers did not
want to run for office. Read that as “blacks” and other minorities, including
low income whites from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’.
In more recent years filing fees have
become a major source of income for the political parties. And every election
cycle they go up. I am not naïve. I know it is hard to turn off a faucet of
free money. The practice is not likely to change anytime soon.
As a long time member of the Baxter
County, Arkansas Republican Committee I have always debated against our having
filing fees. This happens every two years with our election cycles. And every
two years I get voted down by many to one.
This year, however, those who debated
against me used arguments I never suspected I would hear from those who call
themselves Americans or Republicans. Their words saddened me. They call themselves
Americans and Republicans but their words say otherwise.
From the dissenters I heard “Without a
filing fee, just anyone could file and we might have a lot of
people we don’t know anything about”, or “paying a filing fee shows a
commitment” or unbelievably “if they can’t afford to pay a fee they aren’t
qualified to hold public office”.
And to all of those ‘anti’ people I
can only say “So what?” This is
America, whoever wants to run for office should be allowed to without
judgmental notions of Party members getting in their way. I know our party has
members who are bigots and who sneer at those from the ‘other side of the
tracks’. We should not make those ugly views an official stance of the
Republican Party.
By eliminating those views, I admit we
could end up with some unusual people running for public office. Why, we might
even end up with some of them even getting elected, like a rail splitter or
haberdasher.
Oh, horrors!
The Republican Party is viewed by many
as the party of exclusion and populated by imperious people contemptuous of
lesser folks not so fortunate as themselves.
That view is what keeps the blue
collar working class and minorities from voting for our candidates.
That view is staunchly supported by
the same people who dislike President Obama. And those very same people are
keeping themselves blind to the reason Obama was elected President. He focused
his campaign on those people while Republicans, not only ignored them, but
shunned them.
We Republicans have forgotten who we
are and where we came from.
Filing
fees are visible evidence of that.
