{"id":4656,"date":"2012-04-09T05:38:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T05:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/should-city-officials-have-to-help-cover-the-costs-of-special-elections-when-they-abandon-their-office-for-a-higher-one\/"},"modified":"2012-04-09T05:38:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-09T05:38:00","slug":"should-city-officials-have-to-help-cover-the-costs-of-special-elections-when-they-abandon-their-office-for-a-higher-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/should-city-officials-have-to-help-cover-the-costs-of-special-elections-when-they-abandon-their-office-for-a-higher-one","title":{"rendered":"Should City Officials Have to Help Cover the Costs of Special Elections When They Abandon Their Office for a Higher One?"},"content":{"rendered":"

9:45am | <\/strong>It’s an interesting idea that Councilmember Gerrie Schipske says<\/a> she’ll bring to council for a vote: requiring elected officials “to post a \u2018performance bond\u2019 or purchase some type of insurance that would then be used to offset the costs of a special election” if that official wins a higher office while in the middle of his\/her term.<\/p>\n

On the face of it, it’s hard to fault the logic. If we elect Carrie Candidate to serve as Government Person for (e.g.) four years, why should we have to spend money on a special election because Carrie’s got too much ambition to sit still?<\/p>\n

A counter-argument might be that if we don’t like Carrie’s attempts at upward mobility, we can always cast our ballots to thwart her plans. Problem is, in such a scenario it will almost always be the case that at least some of the voters in the election determining whether Carrie climbs that ladder will be from outside the pool of voters who put her in her current office.<\/p>\n

To make the discussion more concrete, it’s pretty clear that in the near term Schipske has two of her colleagues in mind: Suja Lowenthal and Patrick O’Donnell, both of whom hope to win new terms in their respective 2nd and 4th Districts in tomorrow’s election \u2014 gigs that each will probably ditch in two years if things fall right. Lowenthal has already confirmed<\/a> that in 2014 she will run to succeed Mayor Bob Foster if he does not seek a third term as a write-in; and presumably the only reason O’Donnell isn’t already seeking the new 70th Assembly District seat (which will come up for election again in two years) is because incumbent Bonnie Lowenthal decided to drop her bid for the Senate and seek a final term in the Assembly.<\/p>\n

It may be worth noting that Schipske didn’t come up with this idea until after she dropped her own mid-term run for the same seat1<\/sup>, but the financially convenient-for-her timing of her proposal is a separate question from that of its merits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis may not be a perfect solution to reducing these city expenditures,” Schipske says, “but we really have to do something that sends the message that you need to finish what you were elected to do and that the taxpayers shouldn\u2019t have to pay the costs of a special election because you wanted to serve elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

FOOTNOTES:<\/span><\/p>\n

1<\/sup>Schipske indicates she abandoned her run specifically over this concern: “Listen, I have felt the urge to run for higher office while sitting on City Council, especially due to redistricting, but I thought about how my constituents would feel having just re-elected me and then having to pay for a special election if I left. That didn’t seem right.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s an interesting idea that Councilmember Gerrie Schipske says she’ll bring to council for a vote: requiring elected officials “to post a \u2018performance bond\u2019 or purchase some type of insurance that would then be used to offset the costs of a special election” if that official wins a higher office while in the middle of his\/her term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4656"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=4656"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}