RAINEY: ELECTIONS SHOULDN’T BE CANCELED, EVEN WITHOUT COMPETITION
By Dave Wielenga
Former school board candidate Naomi Rainey asserted today in a statement released by the NAACP that the Long Beach Unified School District ought to conduct regularly scheduled elections for seats on the Board of Education even when all candidates are unopposed.
“The Long Beach Unified School District should be having elections whether there is one person running or ten people running,” said Rainey, 62, who for three days this month was a candidate for the Board of Educaton and is the longtime president of the NAACP’s Long Beach chapter. ”It is the fundamental essence of democracy.”
Rainey’s announced withdrawal from the Board of Education race at about midday on Jan. 13 left every incumbent unopposed. However, because she did not complete the necessary paperwork before the 5 p.m. deadline that day, her withdrawal was not official. This left the LBUSD with the legal obligation to hold an election, which district officials have estimated will cost $200,000.
Rainey has been heavily criticized for the situation, which has been widely presented as without appeal or option. But while signaling in her statement that there may yet be a way to extract her name as a candidate and cancel the election, Rainey insisted that shouldn’t be anyone’s objective.
“I have been approached with options to remove my name from the ballot,” Rainey revealed. ”Whether or not my name is removed, the school board should do more than provide citizens a forum. Citizens should be given a vote. We deserve a democratic election. Elections are not a mistake. They are the foundation of American democracy, and the right thing to do.”
Rainey said her statement was issued in response “to articles printed in the media regarding the school board election.” But she did not address why the statement was released via an e-mail account that listed the sender as the NAACP.
Although Rainey has been president of the NAACP’s Long Beach chapter for at least 10 years, the use of the civil rights organization’s e-mail account in this situation raises questions:
Is the statement the official position of the NAACP or its Long Beach chapter?
Was Rainey running for a seat on the Board of Education as the exclusive proxy of the NAACP? Or would she have been free to respond to the any constituent?
Here is the message in its entirety:
Naomi Rainey’s Official Response to Articles Printed in the Media Regarding School Board Election
January 23, 2012
Headline: Elections are Not a Mistake
Statement:
I believe in democracy. The cornerstone of democracy is the ability for citizens to vote their approval or disapproval of our government officials. From the President of the United States, to the school boards in our local communities, elections are the cornerstone of our democracy. Elections provide the foundation for citizens to not only voice their concerns to incumbents, but to back people’s voice in a way that cannot be ignored. The Long Beach Unified School District should be having elections whether there is one person running or ten people running. It is the fundamental essence of democracy. Our community has expressed to me their belief in having an electoral voice. Whether my name is on the ballot or not, citizens ought to have the right to vote their approval or disapproval of the people that will shape our education system in Long Beach for years to come. I have been approached with options to remove my name from the ballot. Whether or not my name is removed, the school board should do more than provide citizens a forum. Citizens should be given a vote. We deserve a democratic election. Elections are not a mistake. They are the foundation of American democracy, and the right thing to do.
Naomi Rainey
4 Comments
Ms. Rainey makes some interesting points. Since write-in votes are lawful, an election where an incumbent is running un-opposed can still have some potential electoral value.
I think that there may be better ways for some to express their potential displeasure with an un-opposed incumbent, however, than to hold an expensive election just to give them an opportunity to withhold their votes.
I wonder, though, whether there is any statutory *requirement* to hold an election for an office where the incumbent is running un-opposed?
Yeah, democracy, I get it. I’m all for democracy. That’s great.
But if we support democracy so much, how about all of us also doing our part to make sure we help it to run right–doing our homework to make sure we know how to run for office as well as withdraw from consideration where appropriate?
I can understand that Ms. Rainey appreciates democracy; as head of the Long Beach NAACP chapter–and, now, as an inadvertent candidate for school board–I should hope she would.
However, I think calling for democracy and for the election to go forward is just a little disingenuous at this point–considering her failure to withdraw is the very reason why the election must, apparently, go on.
I don’t know, Theo. Is that truly the reason? I mean, the law says a candidate must withhdraw within a certain number of days, but I haven’t yet found anything that says the election would not have to be held in any case. Perhaps we should check our premise…
So sad now that TALB has been neutered by CTA and the Chamber of Commerce has moved on to more important issues, there is no group in a city this large that dares or cares to offer an alternative to the powers that be who have been responsible for multi-million dollar losses of education funds (business department pension spiking, Superior Benefits healthcare losses, approving schemes that left the district with unsecured assets from a failed school facilities corporation, etc) over the past decade. Oh well, we have new bike lanes…