A few months ago I was asked, and agreed, to join the executive committee of the Citizens for a Better City organization. The CBC is a nonpartisan local political action committee whose primary function is to elect city council and school board candidates in our local nonpartisan elections. The CBC is the most venerable local political organization in the city having been around and active in city affairs since around 1953. I have been a member of the CBC since 1997 and have actively supported all CBC candidates in every local election since 1998 (providing money, taking yards signs, and working on campaigns in many different capacities).
My relationship with the CBC, however, is strained. From my perspective, the strain stems from my support when I was chair of the Falls Church City Democratic Committee for a resolution which allowed the FCCDC to endorse candidates in local nonpartisan campaigns provided Hatch Act provisions and specific protections for the intellectual property of the party were observed. My support for the FCCDC endorsement policy was in response to corresponding changes at the State Board of Elections and the Democratic Party of Virginia allowing endorsements from local partisan committees in nonpartisan elections under a narrow set of procedural circumstances. My support for the endorsement policy also followed the CBC's decision for the first time ever to endorse a partisan (Republican candidate Team Dave Snyder) for city council, which I adamantly opposed. The CBC endorsement was followed by the expectation the local Democratic committee would then share its Democratic intellectual property (street sheet, mailing lists, etc.) with the CBC-endorsed slate of candidates (as had been the practice for many years). I refused to share Democratic material with the CBC. The CBC adapted and presumably took steps to secure the needed materials from somewhere else in an election in which the council candidates were unopposed.
There is a lot more back story here, but I will not belabor the point. It is just a complicated relationship.
My reasons for supporting the CBC are very simple. Nonpartisan local elections are the best system of government for Falls Church City, and nonpartisan local elections are the best organizational practice for our local partisan committees. In our small jurisdiction so close to Washington DC, the best pool of local candidates must include people who are progressive and conservative. We should not "Hatch Out" progressives like Dan Gardner and Dan Sze, and we should not dismiss excellent candidates like David Chavern or Ron Peppe because they are conservative. From the local party perspective, partisan committees in a jurisdiction the size of Falls Church are better focused on regional, state, and federal partisan political issues. Without the CBC, or organizations like the CBC, the quality of local candidates is more likely to devolve and citizens are less likely to participate as our local election system unmoors itself from transparency, accountability, and identifiable principles of good local government.
My support for progressive politics does not equate to my support for the CBC. Progressive politics is a passionate cause for me, while the CBC is merely a tool to achieve an outcome which I believe is good for our community and my party. If the CBC cannot perform its primary functions, it should be replaced rather than allow the quality of our local government to devolve.
The lessons of devolution in nonpartisan local government are easy to see. Similar to the CBC, Arlington was once run mostly by the nonpartisan ABC organization until that organization became unmoored, devolved, and was eventually replaced by partisan local elections. Partisan Republicans who knew they could not be elected on their merits in Arlington, ran "stealth" campaigns for the Arlington Board under the guise of being populist nonpartisan candidates. One day very progressive Arlington woke up and realized partisan Republicans ran the ABC, had just been elected to a majority on the Arlington Board, and that turnout in local elections was at an all time low. Arlingtonians whom I trust look at what is happening in Falls Church and they just shake their heads knowingly ... their advice has been uniformly not to make the mistake of "carrying" the CBC and creating a vacuum in which partisan Republicans can organize as stealth candidates and govern in a overwhelmingly progressive community.
So once again I find myself in a quixotic dance with the CBC in which I am encouraging the organization to lead.
Build the organization by finding and working to elect good candidates and by consistently communicating principles. Reject the siren songs which unmoor the organization from its principles. Find the "middle path" which Arlington could not find and preserve nonpartisan local elections. It is a mistake for the CBC to stand for nothing in order to appeal to everyone; to fail to communicate consistently from an informed perspective with supporters and detractors; to fail to hold its executive leadership and candidates accountable for upholding the organizational principles; to reflexively fear competition of ideas and criticism; and to accept every idea expressed as equal without vetting the idea against organizational ideals.
Simply put, if the CBC organization leads based on its principles Falls Church City will follow and our local government will be improved as a result. If the CBC cannot lead it should get out of the way to prevent the ultimate and entirely predictable devolution of our local government.
